When I Am Asked by
Dan-Vy Nguyen
When I am asked
How I began playing piano,
I talk about the indifference of people.
It is something I’ve struggled with
My whole life.
It was an ordinary day.
I sat on a cozy couch,
Surrounded by my closest friends,
Enjoying lunch together,
The only time we get to see each other.
It was like any other day,
Sitting there with my school bought lunch,
A cheese burger and tater tots.
No one said a single word to me
As if I wasn’t even there.
I sat on a cozy couch,
Not able to move,
Nodding off in front of the TV,
My bowl of soup getting cold in front of me,
A thin film forming at its surface.
There’s no need to check my phone,
I know there are no texts messages,
Because they don’t even realize
I’m gone.
_______________________________________
When I Am Asked by
Lisel Mueller
When I am asked
how I began writing poems,
I talk about the indifference of nature.
It was soon after my mother died,
a brilliant June day,
everything blooming.
I sat on a gray stone bench
in a lovingly planted garden,
but the day lilies were as deaf
as the ears of drunken sleepers
and the roses curved inward.
Nothing was black or broken
and not a leaf fell
and the sun blared endless commercials
for summer holidays.
I sat on a gray stone bench
ringed with the ingenue faces
of pink and white impatiens
and placed my grief
in the mouth of language,
the only thing that would grieve with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment