April 19: Riveted
Martha
Riveted
Robyn Sarah
It is possible that things will not get better
than they are now, or have been known to be.
It is possible that we are past the middle now.
It is possible that we have crossed the great water
without knowing it, and stand now on the other side.
Yes: I think that we have crossed it. Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.
Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.
It is possible that we will walk out of the darkened hall
without waiting for the last act: people do.
Some people do. But it is probable
that we will stay seated in our narrow seats
all through the tedious denouement
to the unsurprising end—riveted, as it were;
spellbound by our own imperfect lives
because they are lives,
and because they are ours.
----
Bon appétit:
2025: spring, Safia Elhillo
2024: Dear Proofreader, David Hernandez
2023: The Socks, Jane Kenyon
2022: Ode to Friendship, Noor Hindi
2021: Heartbeats, Melvin Dixon
2020: Sunday Night, Raymond Carver
2019: Virginia Street, Jennifer Hayashida
2018: What Seems Like Joy, Kaveh Akbar
2017: Aunties, Kevin Young
2016: For the Union Dead, Robert Lowell
2015: The Cambridge Afternoon Was Gray, Alicia Ostriker
2014: Spirit of the Bat, Peggy Shumaker
2013: Thanks, W. S. Merwin
2012: Sweetness, Stephen Dunn
2011: I Remember, Anne Sexton
2010: Letter, Franz Wright
2009: 23rd Street Runs Into Heaven, Kenneth Patchen
2008: HOUSEHOLD ACTIVITY NO. 26, J.R. Quackenbush
2007: from Briggflatts, Basil Bunting
2006: The Chores, Frannie Lindsay
2005: Direct Address, Joan Larkin