Today we begin a week of poetry, featuring work by a new writer each day.
by Erin Wilson
A Small Room with a Generous View
I’ve always dreamed of living a small life,
always wanted to be beloved of salt and pepper,
wanted to live directly above my pelvic girdle,
living to appreciate the allure of doorknobs,
the sex appeal of pianos.
I’ve always dreamed of living a small life,
maybe have a friend, maybe lose a lover,
maybe find a dog, maybe help a stranger.
Flowers are nice.
The only way to not live a small life
is by pretending one is lofty, living larger,
higher than, by untouching treetops,
believing that one is far beyond the hold of light and shadows,
by being executive of uberdom, a serf to no one.
I’ve always dreamed of living a small life,
accessing the extraordinarily fundamental,
taking the portal directly into being (which ends way past sorrow),
being the willing slave to marvel.
***
A Painting Which Smells of Oil and Sweetness
What a strange room summer is.
Eyes must be wild upon every fiery green surface.
The pregnancy of plants is a toxin to logic.
The poison is the cure.
The cure carves into the mind extruding,
as though from melon, seedlets.
Stare bewildered into the flesh of
cupped capable hands.
Is a body fit to behold abundance?
Should it shun it?
Where, on earth,
did the idea of sin come from?
Plentiful, bountiful,
extravagant world,
resting like a vulgar wheel
against a stone foundation.
