Two Poems
by Adam Clay
To Take Note of Where We Are
Plainly spoken, I am responding to you.
Despite our best efforts to will it shut,
the proof of the world today
can best be seen in its opening up. Should
we get lost, let us be lost in a familiar
space, surrounded by every motion
of the unnamed and unseen until
the moment they appear. With the sofa
in a slightly different place this morning,
the room resembles a dream of the room:
the details remain present and realistic
while everything bends towards one wall
in particular. I know what you want,
but the wind will not concern itself with us.
Occupied Mind
Somehow the day of the week
escapes even the most aware
among us. The trees dampen
most sounds but that’s because
the land manages to be unaware
of itself. I am not thinking
of floods today or even of weather
in the sense that it usually occupies
the mind. I’m deleting memories
one by one with the hopes
that the space each one occupied
will exist elsewhere in the world
until the idea of the world
and its order will be no more
than that tiny dandelion over there.