April 29, 2009: There Are Many Theories About What Happened, John Gallagher
There Are Many Theories About What Happened
John Gallagher
The bright yellow newspaper stand is selling papers
where the president is waving. It’s April.
We stood a little off to one side. “We’re
watching the president for a hundred days” we said.
The president on a plane. The president
playing basketball.
“Was there enough about the drapes? The puppy?”
we asked all winter.
“At different times of the day,
the president appears older or more luminous,”
we said. However old we got. However old
we started.
It’s day 87, and our trees are looking like real trees
in bright green, almost yellow,
so that the still town looks like a real town.
Maybe the body really is you. Maybe a picture
is a fact.
And our river is looking like a real river, with a dock,
and a boy and his father fishing.
There’s a picture of the president with a dog.
We want so many things.
[This is from the Poems for the First 100 Days project, which let a hundred poets respond to the first hundred days of the Obama presidency: one per day through today, the hundredth. It’s an interesting snapshot of very different styles and levels of politicization, and really contemporary events. Some of my favorites:
Praise for The Inaugural Poet, January, 2009, Cornelius Eady (which I like more than Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural day poem itself); In Oxford Mississippi, Anne Fisher-Worth; Welcome to Hard Times, Ian Harris; The First Easter, 2009, cin salach; and Dear Steve, Craig Arnold.]
A year ago today: bon bon il est un pays, Samuel Beckett
Two years ago: Root root root for the home team, Bob Hicok
Three years ago: Fever 103°, Sylvia Plath
Four years ago: King Lear Considers What He’s Wrought, Melissa Kirsch
