POEM OF THE DAY BY RHIANNON DICKERSON

When a body in motion comes to rest, it feels like it’s still moving.



Your friend is disenchanted. You can tell by the way he sits.
By the way he leaps onto familiar objects like the table. He
bends his knees a bit; takes a hunter’s pose; interrogates

the horizon for signs of movement and raises a phantom
spear over his right shoulder and throws. He didn’t used to hunt
in the living room and you think it’s strange that he’s doing so now.

You’re a good friend, mostly, so you walk him to his room, pat him
on his back, and bring him a glass of tepid water and place
it on his bedside table.
A lot of folks are coming back this way,
Lord knows. There’s a pirate in the ballroom, a ghost with a lamp-
shade on his head, a robber in the bank. I saw a lion in a parking lot
just the other day. A lion! There’s a crab apple tree where my fica used
to be.

What kind of space is reality if we must come back to it? Tell your
friend not to fall apart. We all see the dark shape shifting in the distance.


-RHIANNON DICKERSON