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
… the moon comes up in her
secondness, left edge not
filled in quite, the abject not filled in quite
but trying …
I dreamt my love was lost, uncomforted.
He lay alone in Pavia, eclipsed
by fortune, by the catastrophic tides
Are you listening? Mommy takes care of you.
She’s writing this letter with her pen dipped
in the milk her nipples won’t stop streaming
Best of all things are the lights in the sky
but what I am seeking is sleep.
Or not sleep exactly,
My neighbor was a biker, a pusher, a dog
and wife beater.
In bad dreams I killed him
As in an old memoir, the rhododendrons were over.
Hunger persisted, and the light was weak—
the light of music and books, the light paintings cast