Sherman Alexie

Spectacle

Your eyewear and my eyewear,

Utilitarian and designed,

Are strewn across the bed

With their bare legs entwined.

Dear Bathtub

You are not claw foot. Instead, you are modern, sloped, and as sweet as a bed, but I am

not foolish enough to claim that you embrace me, though you do embrace the water, and

the water takes my shape. Or do I take water’s form? This escape from my wife and kids,

from this whole damn life, is selfish. But I will not be contrite. Your Honor, I’m a

remorseless felon and solitude is my favorite weapon.

Freeway

We are not drivers

As much as we are survivors

Of a dozen potential wrecks

For each mile that we travel.

To place so much trust in others

Is madness, but here we are,

Sisters and brothers, unsettled,

Distracted by our cells

Brief thoughts about Hell,

And the mad dog sun

Pulling its chain toward our eyes.

We are one swerve from becoming tatter

To tatter, and metal to metal.

This commute is the only religion

Where sin and good

Works can be equally shattered.

Author: Sherman Alexie

Sherman Alexie‘s most recent book is Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories. He is the  author of five other collections of poetry; his poems have appeared also in the Nation, Georgia Review, Poetry, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.  He won the National Book Award for his YA novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Mr. Alexie  teaches English and creative writing at College of the Holy Cross where he is the Barrett Professor of Creative Writing.

Plume: Issue #19 January 2013