«
She woke me up at dawn,
her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels.
I sat up and looked out the window
at the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees.
A bus ticket in her hand.
Then she brought something black up to her mouth,
a plum I thought, but it was an asthma inhaler.
I reached under the bed for my menthols
and she asked if I ever thought of cancer.
Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead
in the distance where it doesn’t matter.
And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree,
so far behind his wagon where it also doesn’t matter
except as a memory of rest or water.
Though to believe any of that, I thought,
you have to accept the premise
that she woke me up at all.
»—
David Berman, Imagining Defeat
Today, I got to my film class really early, so I sat in the back corner, took out my book of poetry and iPod, and really KuNeKteD to this poem while listening to The Drums.
I don’t think a more hipster sentence has ever been said in my personal word bank. This semester’s classes are making me feel so pompously English major and I’m loving every minute of it.
