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
In the dun-colored sky
A cloud even more dun-colored
With the black outline of the sun.
Virginal decorations.
The pain of countless upside-down candles.
Vegetables embody overlooked power. Think of your mother
standing over you when you wouldn’t eat spinach
and Bush turning his back on bouquets of broccoli.
Where do you come from? Where did you grow? Your leaving
brought you here To the nest at the center of your home Where
have you flown? Your lowered gze at the center of your home Where
She helps her son detach the kneecap from the leg
and wash it in the stream.
Cultivating people can be arduous,
With results as uncertain as weather.
Try oysters, meerkats, turnips, mice.
Insomnia, my cousin,
you have sired nightly
indecent vertigo.
Sublimation, a new version of piety.
Hovers the paint and gets her going.
Everything drifts, a barely heard sigh is the
I stood by the dark barn and called
and called to her by name,
into the labyrinth of stalls
Flute—a simple remedy
of which the herb is sound.
My eye is a planet with another motion,