Song for Future Books
The book is made of glass and I look through it and see more books. Many glass books. Is someone speaking? A muffled voice is telling me to make soup which I think means I am loved. What other kind of cup fills itself? Can there be a cup of cup? A cup of itself? Outside a black squirrel has wiggled to the end of a very skinny branch. When the squirrel breathes the whole tree shakes, as if the squirrel were the soul of the tree. Have you ever felt like such a tree? Not sayin’ I have.
Copyright © 2014 by Joanna Fuhrman. Used with permission of the author. This poem appeared in Poem-a-Day on February 21, 2014. Browse the Poem-a-Day archive.
"In the spring and summer of 2013, I was trying to write a series of short lyrics that merged observation and dreams. Each little poem would be dated and titled with a headline from the day's news. As often happens with poetry, my concept was hurting the integrity of the poems, so I needed to go back and change the titles of the poems—this one was originally called 'Fashion Spread with Women Dressed as Suicidal Women Writers Draws Ire.'"
Joanna Fuhrman
Joanna Fuhrman is a graduate of the University of Washington’s MFA program. She is the author of six books of poetry: To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press, 2021); The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press 2015); Pageant (Alice James Books 2009); Moraine (Hanging Loose Press 2006); Ugh Ugh Ocean (Hanging Loose Press 2006); and Freud in Brooklyn (Hanging Loose Press 2000).