POEM
Son of Fog
Dean YoungWhen the fog burns off and the air's pulverized
diamonds and you can see beyond the islands
of forever!—far too dramatic for me. It hurts
something behind my eyes near the sphenoid,
not good. I prefer fog with fog behind it,
uninflammable fog. Then there's no competition
for brightness, no Byron for your Shelley,
no Juno eclisping your Athena, no big bridge
statement about bringing unity to landmasses.
All the thought balloons are blank. The marching
band can't practice, even a bird's got to get
within five feet before it can start an argument.
Like dead flies on the sill of an abandoned
nursery, we too are seeds in the rattle
of mortality. A foglike baby god
picks it up, shakes it, laughs insanely
then goes back to playing with her feet.
I have felt awful cold and lonely and fog
has been blotting paper to my tears.
My dog is fog and I don't have to scoop
its poop with my hand in a plastic bag.
There are sensations that begin in the world,
the mind responding with ideas but then
those ideas cause other sensations.
What a mess. We stand at the edge
of a drop that doesn't answer back,
fog our only friend although it's hell
on shrimpboats. There, there, says the fog.
Where, where? You can't see a thing.
Source: Poetry (April 2005).
This poem originally appeared in the April 2005 issue of Poetry.
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Poet Dean Young was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania, and received his MFA from Indiana University. . . . MORE »
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