The News
By Wendy Xu
Tossing off expletives into the sea
of cab lights, I lounge ever more
than I work. I wear my silk pants
to the middle-of-America themed bar
as if white-collar were this Halloween's
hottest new costume. It sinks
like a stone, this attention to the lives
of others. I think I have evolved to respect
my social obligations, only complaining
to the cell phone's warm
illicit glow. I feel drunk on the whole
leafy season when you hear me, working
ever to avoid work. Sentiment
forbidden by custom, industrialization
forbidden by nothing. Down the block they
have begun restoring the mid-century
antique dresser, men shuffling back
and forth with gold polish and sand. It's insane
that I care to ask towards its progress.
We repeat a process of hoping our bodies
to the future though for now mine
eats cucumbers in bed. I had a dream
about a crystal blue pool.
I felt stupid when I saw the ocean.
Copyright Credit: Wendy Xu, "The News." Copyright © 2015 by Wendy Xu. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (PoetryNow, 2015)