The smells from someone’s kitchen

and the shine of a newspaper

appear on the heel of a shoe

and into my living room.

Applause: In December I bought nectarines

that tasted like wood,

and if I was a wife

I wouldn’t have done that.

Silence: This city rolls their socks into balls,

doesn’t care about elasticity.

I can’t complain about standards

when I don’t sue my landlord.

Applause: So many things unfold in a closet.

Why should I change my life?

Why should I accept knowing nothing?

My jacket has an impassive pocket,

where I left something important.

Pause: But the shoe will either have me or not,

just like that, and you could go forward.

_______________________________________

Jaimie Gusman lives and works in Seattle where she balances her time validating data, building artful things from collapsed filing cabinets and working on her first book of poems. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Margins Magazine, Permafrost and Diagram.

Kevin On Saturday

We cussed ourselves hoarse this weekend. One of us at the joy of sweeps, one of us at the pain of sweeps. We know our faithful editor is distressed. Much like Larry, the subject of the Coen brothers’ new movie, “A Serious Man.” We know Kevin is brooding today. And Keith Gessen’s new translation of There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Baby empathizes. Liz Waldner’s poems probably don’t help, either, but Dark Sky Magazine and our compatriots in the literary journal world will. Personally, we’ll take some Dickens. Get your brooms out. – Andrew Geer

(more…)