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 veil between the worlds is growing thin.
The grass is growing tall outside the door.
Who was that baby in the dream again?
It was like taking the train across a border between two countries with disparate languages, one built like a fortress and one slinky as a river, and thinking about how orderly languages are, keeping within borders.
We all know where we will be a hundred years from now:
beyond the dailiness of this slow panic
and the fear always present behind the look of denial;
When I see a man
in a dress shirt, I want
to walk up behind him,
When I was a child
I brushed as a child
which is to say often
District of tenements, squat brick laundries,
warehouses with shoulders like boxers’,
and one shop that sells ancient maps,
Lying awake in the middle of the night.
What was and wasn’t done.
Things I don’t like about people I love.
She goes off to look at birds.
I go for a shot in the dark
With room for cream.
We began to meet there
On the mops.
The world is your lawyer.
Pawn-shop pearls.
Hair like telegraph wire.