Saturday’s Poem: I Have News For You

The perfect poem to follow yesterday’s post:

I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU By Tony Hoagland

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing

as a symbol of ruined childhood

and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior

of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.

There are people who don’t walk past an empty swimming pool

and think about past pleasures unrecoverable

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.

I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings

do not send their sinuous feeder roots

deep into the potting soil of others’ emotional lives

as if they were greedy six-year-olds

sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without

debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.

Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?

There are some people, unlike me and you,

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as

unattainable as that moon;

thus, they do not later

have to waste more time

defaming the object of their former ardor.

Or consequently run and crucify themselves

in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.

I have news for you—

there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in

and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.

(from Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, published by Graywolf Press.)

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