Anxiety and the Five-Minute Poem

In February of 2011 I was living a pretty sad, besotted existence. Big surprise there, I know.

I hadn't written, really written, in a few years. Post-baby, post-breakup, post-job loss.

I "met" a girl. On the internet. We talked nightly for about two weeks. We gushed and were icky in fake love. Then one day she stopped calling.

But during one of our first conversations I wrote a poem about Tang and the Space Shuttle Challenger. After that, I wrote a couple dozen more, nearly all occasional poems for particular people.

Last night I attempted to revive that, and wrote a poem for David Wright. He, in turn, wrote one for me. His is here:


David Wright's poem for Anthony Robinson.

He used an actual postcard and is sending it to me via post, like in the olden days.

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Here's my poem for him:


CHAIN
For David Wright

Between the backlit woman & the backboard
in the last gym for miles,

past 5773 years of a nothing we painted

an up smudge

of dodge & burn;

past the knowing & not
knowing, the filters of apple & honey;

there is a caustic unraveling, between us, poet of Midwest

Landscape, Polaroid &

me the endpoint of a horizon of errors—

Ours is a marriage of silences. Two trees.
the ranging forest floor, the small tomorrows.