Clayton Eshleman
EQUAL TIME
Somehow it seems wrong,
a minute on Vietnam refugees
at sea, starving, not allowed to
dock, followed by a minute
on a new world's record in cherry
pit spitting, wrong because
the pit record trivializes a human
plight-so, should we dwell
on an imagined deck, imagined
cries? Somehow the dwelling itself
seems wrong, not only being here
but dwelling on what thought does
not alter. Or on what thought only
raises as thought, say my presenting
suffering to you as language
instead of handing you an actual
refugee. The baby wild hare
my son and I found had
abscessed legs, so we set it back
in its tall grass . Its tremble
brings the refugees closer, its being
alone, frigh tened, defenseless,
might enter the champion
cherry pit spitter's mind as
he dreams in a structure that includes
an altered sense of language
that must include the desert
mountains this morning not as part
