OLD THINGS
[...] Isn't it too
bad about old things, old schools,
Old dishes, with nothing to do but sit and wait
Their turn.
John Ashbery
Cold, remote memories of a few old things
call my attention. Annoying like chance
stains, they're picture-perfect photographs,
notarized documents that make moments
from a life I thought gone from me resurface.
It's clear that these old things kindle
like a living body and soak up past reality
to spew it back out. I find it comforting, though,
to know they're things I still own, put away
on a top shelf in the closet, or in dust-gathering
boxes at my parents' house. They give off
a even stream of light that has to do with
my skin. I'm beginning to wonder if this
actual deferment of my teenage self isn't what
causes the endless layers of idleness in my brain.
I'm not delirious nor am I trying to recover
vulnerability. There is always something fake
about this urge to use two different voices
to dig in the festering wounds of speech.
A frail order in the process of going to waste.
(Poem translated by D. Sam Abrams)
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