Poem of the Day
Study of Children
By Asha Futterman
did you know
that you all work for me?
I asked them as a joke
did you know
that you all work for me?
I asked them as a joke
Aged malt whiskey and cigarettes
consumed to enhance consciousness
—read Blake. You can’t regulate
. . . wanting to build up my
imaginary figure with every
scrap I could find, when
Off to the Gulf and hoping to have the time of our lives,
We found but the signs of fever there: the prostrate horizon,
Unable to drink of the distance, and only appearing at sundown,
Passengers will please refrain
from flushing toilets while the train
is standing in the station. I love you.
An over-large pot of geraniums on the ledge
the curtains part
a view from Kandinsky’s window.
This New England kind of love reminds me
of the potted chrysanthemum my husband
gave me. I cared for it faithfully,
Meet me, meet me whisper the waters from the train
window and the small
skiff adrift
Those high lunches needn’t matter
If you are of businessman’s age
Anyway he enjoyed creating food
So I don’t think I’ll work today. Today it seems best
To let this bench hold my end up. Today
Of what my part was, brooding
Lateness is all that shimmers in the leaves,
that trembles in the bending grass,
that glistens on the berries on the vine.