Muffin of Sunsets

Elaine Equi

The sky is melting. Me too.
Who hasn’t seen it this way?

Pink between the castlework
of buildings.

Pensive syrup
drizzled over clouds.

It is almost catastrophic how heavenly.

A million poets, at least,
have stood in this very spot,
groceries in hand, wondering:

"Can I witness the Rapture
and still make it home in time for dinner?"

Elaine Equi is the author of numerous poetry books including, Click and Clone (Coffee House Press, 2011).

Occasion

Themes

About this Poem

"The title is from a line in a Joe Ceravolo poem. I like muffins and I like sunsets, so it seemed a good idea to combine the two. Lucky for me, since I live in New York, I'm especially fond of the city sunset—the kind whose beauty stops you when you're running someplace else and there are often a lot of others around jockeying for a piece of the view."
—Elaine Equi

Sign up for Poem-a-Day

The Thing Is

What is the difference between objects and things?

Things, I think, have less personality.

These days, all objects are antiques—hearken back to an era of hands handling them.

Playing cards, wooden matches, buttons, plush stuffed bears—we recognize them from the still lifes where they once quivered.

They were—are—tools, curios, refugees from the modernist era.

Of course, we still have these things. But now they are like us, just things.

They no longer celebrate their secret identity—the inner life once bequeathed upon even objects.

Elaine Equi

2019

Ghosts and Fashion

Although it no longer has a body
to cover out of a sense of decorum,

the ghost must still consider fashion—

must clothe its invisibility in something
if it is to “appear” in public.

Some traditional specters favor
the simple shroud—

a toga of ectoplasm
worn Isadora-Duncan-style
swirling around them.

While others opt for lightweight versions
of once familiar tee shirts and jeans.

Perhaps being thought-forms,
they can change their outfits instantly—

Elaine Equi

2015

The Libraries Didn't Burn

despite books kindled in electronic flames.

The locket of bookish love
still opens and shuts.

But its words have migrated
to a luminous elsewhere.

Neither completely oral nor written —
a somewhere in between.

Then will oak, willow,
birch, and olive poets return
to their digital tribes —

trees wander back to the forest?

Elaine Equi

2011

Poems

Muffin of Sunsets

More by this poet

The Thing Is

Ghosts and Fashion

The Libraries Didn't Burn

Poems

Page submenu block

Muffin of Sunsets

More by this poet

The Thing Is

Ghosts and Fashion

The Libraries Didn't Burn

Newsletter Sign Up