Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

I am no longer cutting my hair  
Matthew Siegel

I walk through throngs of people I walk around them
am not particular I stop I look at signs forget where I am
I want to eat cherries I want to write that I want to eat cherries
so I sit down on a bench and don’t write a thing but stand up
and almost call my mother to tell her I’m not sad I’m not sad
at all in fact I now carry a stone I touch it and think of all the things
I am grateful for and gosh there are plenty of things medicine
the ability to make fire applesauce etc Devon says he’s grateful
we’re so far from the sun Eric says BEER and I say I am grateful
they each feel that way tomorrow is my bi-weekly injection
and I’m grateful I can do it myself can pinch an inch of my thigh
the discomfort is minimal just like not having cable television
or something maybe running out of ice and having to drink
water warm from the tap except different completely different

 

Matthew Siegel is a poet and essay writer from New York. A recent Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, he has poems and essays appearing or are forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins, Indiana Review, The Lumberyard, Lo-Ball, Mid-American Review, TheRumpus.net and elsewhere. He lives in San Francisco.