A Skull
is like a house
with a brain inside. Another place
where eating
and thinking
tango and spar—
At night
you lean out, releasing
thought balloons.
On the roof
someone stands ready
with a pin—
Copyright © 2019 by Dana Levin. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 1, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
“A poem can sometimes feel like something hidden behind a door: the door opens and you are invited into something strange—maybe something confounding, disturbing—in some way that is felt, beyond intellect. The reader, the writer, tries to clothe the poem in interpretation, but such poems will not completely surrender to analysis, will prefer, always, to be naked and beyond. This is part of the intimacy of poetry, part of its stubbornness, part of its genius.”
—Dana Levin
Dana Levin
Dana Levin is the author of Banana Palace (Copper Canyon Press, 2016) and Sky Burial (Copper Canyon Press, 2011), among other books. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.