Chitra Ganesh, How to Assemble a Flying Car (detail), 2018, linocut on tan BFK Rives. Courtesy of the artist & Durham Press.
The Coin Purse
She said: I always talk against my chances,
paint a picture of what I want
and show the ways I won’t get it—
I fill up a room of desires,
tally all the pieces there,
and then, like the moving man
carry out the cargo. Such freedom.
When it’s empty—that is,
when I see my listener’s
eyes drop, finding the room
cleaned out, the dusty air
and echoing voice, then I click
the conversation off,
snap it like a little coin purse.
I hoard my luck.
David Gewanter is the author of In the Belly and The Sleep of Reason (both from University of Chicago Press) and co-editor, with Frank Bidart, of Robert Lowell: Collected Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Faber and Faber). His latest book, War Bird, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2009. Awards include a Hopwood Prize, Zacharis First Book Prize, Whiting Writer’s Fellowship, and Witter Bynner Fellowship. He was a finalist for the James Laughlin Prize, and his edition of Lowell won the Ambassador Book Award from the English-Speaking Union and “Book of the Year” from Contemporary Poetry Review. He teaches at Georgetown University. (updated 12/2016)