Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
A Father Wonders at a Boy Not Made of Ivory
The boy wants to know how many seconds we have been alive.
The boy says, Wait—in the middle of the museum, among all that
red paint. And so we sit, legs crossed toward one another
while, behind him, a great king’s son lounges in ivory. I think
how lucky we are not to be art, to be cast into roles we cannot
mold or reverse. Happy are we to sit with glowing numbers
in our palms, tallying each breath, each sword clash, each morning
when we could wake and decide not to accept the life we have.
Poetry
“I live out my life in the widening coils” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Translated from the German by David Keplinger
Poetry
