No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story.
I waited in three lines to see Michael Stewart. The first line was for the metal detector outside the Guggenheim Museum. The second line, inside the Frank Lloyd Wright rotunda, was for my reserved ticket. The third was to get into the gallery to see Basquiat’s “Defacement,” his portrait of Michael Stewart being “defaced” by police violence.
But there is something else that stings me. Burns. You were my friend first. You were supposed to be my friend too. I study Wes’s face. His purple heart hardened with cruelty into a midnight shade. He’s right where he wants to be, right next to Reed. And he does not see me.
I can still picture myself in sixth grade, sitting in the library, reading Alice Hoffman’s "At Risk". I can still see the way the light filtered in through the glass, bouncing off the walls covered with books.
I find it strange that in our troubled world, I should be trying to convince you to read a poem.
Verdure shifts into cranberry, pumpkin, corn-colored sparks and ascends into memory; rain-soaked bark
In my ongoing project of reading all of Chekhov’s stories, I am more than halfway along, and I have come upon this small gem about Ognev and Vera.