As If I Am Someone Else
so much depends
on the authority
of a reality
to guide me
in a logic
of circumstance—
to live comfortably
yet desire differently.
Credit
Copyright © 2015 by Douglas Piccinnini. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 19, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“I began this poem by meditating on the well-known line from William Carlos Williams’s poem ‘The Red Wheel Barrow.’ By repeating and repeating ‘so much depends’ in my head, my poem began to reveal itself, steeped in the gravity of trying to understand the levels of reality we live in.”
—Douglas Piccinnini
Author
Douglas Piccinnini
Douglas Piccinnini is the author of Story Book (The Cultural Society, 2015) and a forthcoming collection of poems, Blood Oboe (Omnidawn, 2015). He lives in Lambertville, New Jersey.
Date Published
08/19/2015