The Genie Speaks
I will start again tomorrow, after waking under
the fingernails of Scheherazade. Small things
will become large, and large things will become
themselves. It is an old story and familiar, despite
how much I hate being divided. Here I am, despite
how much I should not be. At this moment, I am
reaching far into a page that is oozing like honey-
comb. If you will pardon my hyperbole, there are
leaves of something that matters, I do not know
what, blowing in every direction. At the foretold
moment, our other earth opens a secret hand. If
there is a purpose, we will know it soon enough,
although not knowing feels satisfactory and good:
better than good, I am tempted to say to the bees.
Copyright © 2023 by Nathan Spoon. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 20, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I often begin poems in response to a word or a phrase I’ve encountered, or while attempting to capture an image, feeling, thought, or impression. This small beginning sets off a cascade of association that becomes the poem. I write poems quickly, in a single draft, before moving on. After writing the first sentence of this poem, I knew it could be a sonnet of two seven-line stanzas, giving a sense of the fabulistic by having the genie speak about inspiration, narrative, and meaning through a construct-aware approach to language.”
—Nathan Spoon
Nathan Spoon
Nathan Spoon is an autistic poet. The author of The Importance of Being Feeble-Minded (Nine Mile Books, 2023) and Fail Better! Feel Great!! (Third Man Books, 2021), he is the editor of Queerly.