I watch a woman take a photo
of a flowering tree with her phone.
A future where no one will look at it,
perpetual trembling which wasn’t
and isn’t. I have taken photos of a sunset.
In person, ”wow” ”beautiful”
but the picture can only be
as interesting as a word repeated until emptied.
I think I believe this.
Sunset the word holds more than a photo could.
Since it announces the sun then puts it away.
We went to the poppy preserve
where the poppies were few but generous clumps
of them grew right out the fence
like a slightly cruel lesson.
I watched your face, just out of reach.
The flowers are diminished by the lens.
The woman tries and tries to make it right
bending her knees, tilting back.
I take a photo of a sunset, with flash.
I who think I have something
to learn from anything learned nothing from the streetlight
that shines obnoxiously into my bedroom.
This is my photo of a tree in bloom.
A thought unfolding
across somebody’s face.
Reprinted from ANYBODY by Ari Banias. Copyright © 2016 by Ari Banias. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company Inc. All rights reserved.
Ett stort och varmt tack till Ari Banias för att han lät oss publicera den här dikten, som är hämtad ur hans kritikerrosade debutsamling ANYBODY. Skriver Maggie Nelson träffande om Banias diktvärld: ”I’m so impressed by the range and grace of Ari Banias’ Anybody. It’s discursive, straight-talking, and thinky, then ghostlike, elliptical, and mischivious. It takes its time, then rushes; it’s quiet, then bold; it’s steeped in sociality, then ringing with solitude.”
Ola Wihlke
BearBooks 