Poem of the Day
Study of Children
By Asha Futterman
did you know
that you all work for me?
I asked them as a joke
did you know
that you all work for me?
I asked them as a joke
Who am I who speaks to you?
Though that’s not it exactly. Try this. What behind the eyes had looked out so central, so
Unwound from reason on a rope,
All rules of nature foiling,
Sinks the light-armed bathyscope.
Where it's rubbed out, start there, where it's torn
where something like a burn in cloth the hot
metal pressed too long, forgotten
Little caskets of my former dreams,
I feed you back into the Ganges
of living perceptions, extravagant
Furtive, that's the version I want.
With eyes averted. Downcast, a little sly.
He knows about the destruction caused by reaction:
emotional wounds, self-inflicted, a repeated torture
he brings about, trying to interrogate the self
Morgan saw Athena's face in the crowd
at the Athens International Airport
Travelers without passports may become
the norm but this Englishman remains
in Greece so Morgan asks how he lost it.
He crouches on the Eames-like throne
His backbone exposed to the sacred tapestry
He doesn’t want anyone to tell him
what color to paint his house nor
how to design it. He grows tired