Today’s poem of the day is recommended by BookPeople bookseller Kester Smith: Imagining Defeat by David Berman. Music fans will recognize Berman from his band the Silver Jews, as well as from his contributions to the band Pavement. Imagining Defeat comes from Berman’s 1999 collection, Actual Air.
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Imagining Defeat
She woke me up at dawn,
her suitcase like a little brown dog at her heels.
I sat up and looked out the window
at the snow falling in the stand of blackjack trees.
A bus ticket in her hand.
Then she brought something black up to her mouth,
a plum I thought, but it was an asthma inhaler.
I reached under the bed for my menthols
and she asked if I ever thought of cancer.
Yes, I said, but always as a tree way up ahead
in the distance where it doesn’t matter
And I suppose a dead soul must look back at that tree,
so far behind his wagon where it also doesn’t matter.
except as a memory of rest or water.
Though to believe any of that, I thought,
you have to accept the premise
that she woke me up at all.
BookPeople 