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
Wordless graffiti of unease
when people die where do they go?
And all the while we were ourselves ideas,
not new ones, either, of if not a mind
We’ve loved other bodies the years have altered:
knuckles swollen, skin slackened, eyelids grainy
Their street is being frosted to a myth.
simple as crickets, our own light
blurred in the sparkle of particulars.
If there is a God, he has a lot to answer for.
Elsewhere bears were trusting their bodies
to take them to safety, but what did bears know
It’s vanishing as you speak, the soul-grit,
the story-fodder
What a life you’ve had! A face like a photo album,
a road map of good times. Its zigzagged lines
resemble
there walked one Iraqi in a three-piece suit
who tried to express by his general indifference