When I Am Asked by Dan-Vy Nguyen

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.

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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.