might as well say
that she’s a bit of a crank
that she’s never owned or driven a car,
never taken a taxi,
and never, though drenched, accepted a ride
that she’s given up
the job of doing calculus in her head
to live on her inheritance
and focus on writing words
as illuminating as the streetlights
the authorities had installed
to shadow the walk home
that she’s wealthy enough
to own two homes
a five-hour train trip apart,
each with a study,
each with its different books and recordings,
each prompting distinct though not always antithetical thoughts
that clarify doubts
that she often enjoys the train trip,
though she sometimes can’t work up the courage
to pass out the pamphlets she’s had printed
to passengers who only pretend to read,
their eyes glazed with the certainty
they can afford to dismiss words offered for free
that, yes, she collects the pamphlets left on the seats,
committed to revise
till each word glows
more brightly than the headlights of passing cars
Jack Kristiansen exists in William Aarnes’ composition books, where is he working on a developing series that he thinks he will call Something Discovering Itself: Poems after Klee. One poem from this series has been included in A Millennial Sampler of South Carolina Poetry and another in FIELD. A third is forthcoming in The Literary Review.
William Aarnes’ book, Learning to Dance, was published in 1991 by Ninety-Six Press, which also published his second collection, Predicaments, in 2001. His first published poem appeared in FIELD in 1969. Over the years he has had poems published in The American Scholar, The Southern Review, and Poetry. His work is forthcoming in nthposition, The Shenandoah Review, and The Seneca Review. He teaches at Furman University.