Living on Someone Else's Money (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
Poems
Find and share the perfect poems.
More by this poet
The picture of elegance, my grandfather.
I wanted his photograph in the dictionary.
Alone of the men I knew as a kid,
he always wore a shirt with a collar,
always shined his shoes. Equanimity
in a family on the run from itself.
He amazed me once with a cardboard box
2025
How much oxygen
to ask a question,
to rattle a crack-lipped
whisper,
a one-word lie?
Other animals exist
in an endless present—
ice and light,
speed or crawl, waves
of whatever is this and now.
Of course there’s us—
the only breathing bodies
free enough not
to show up to ourselves,
for whom, if we can
summon strength,
being anywhere
is always in doubt.
Why? Why bother?
Because what is there?
With everything
our bodies know,
strong or broken,
2013