Jack Myers
Here in my little place,
making poems, making sleep,
a glass of water so clear
it hurts, I have learned acceptance
from the rain that wipes out its losses
with new losses, how like the epiphany
of an after-image it suddenly struck me
everything I bought this year was blue.
Even the little tsk on the dial of my electric blanket
set to preserve me in sleep offers peace,
and the telephone holding back and bulging
and holding back harder before it explodes
has kept my childish wanting-to-be-wanted in check.
Yesterday I sprinkled some rosemary,
which stands for remembrance and fidelity,
into my virgin olive oil. I thought, like it,
if I can wait the winter out inside
as it slowly turns green, when I open it,
it'll be my wild spring in Greece.
Once in a while I eat just enough to burst forth
and lay claim to something calling me out there.
It happened with a shirt I bought
that already seemed so much a part of me,
it exposed my deepest fear.
It had so many pockets and pleats
that the thought of ironing it
practically exhausted me, and before I knew it
I was engulfed in another relationship
so complex and delicate that upon leaving,
I stood outside at my door,
my back to the world,
like an announcement;
I could not, for the life of me,
turn around; Blunderer, Oaf,
the sum total of me overwhelmed
once more on the edge of being noticed.
Tables of Content
Seventeen (Fall 2003)
Sixteen (Spring 2003)
Fifteen (Fall 2002) Fourteen (Spring 2002)
Thirteen
(Fall 2001) Twelve (Spring 2001)
Eleven (Fall 2000)
Ten (Spring 2000)
Nine (Fall 1999) Eight (Spring 1999)
Seven, (Fall 1998) Six, (Spring 1998)
Five (Fall 1997) Four (Winter/Spring 1997)
Three (Summer/Fall 1996) Two (Winter 1996)