Why I Read Poems

Whatever I always imagined a poetry-lover to be, I’m not that person. I was not a quiet, dreamy (read: poetic) kid. I built forts and slept outside in the summer; I made stew out of sticks and pinecones and grass in margarine tubs of hose water. I caught crawdads with a fishing pole I made out of a marshmallow stick. I loved to read, but mostly about kids surviving in the wilderness. Island of the Blue Dolphins, My Side of the Mountain, Julie of the Wolves. That kind of thing. Poetry was boring. Even Shel Silverstein.

Foreign Exchange

You leave out the part about the jeep. 

Instead you tell him about the crowded bus winding up the narrow mountain road, the curtain of green outside the windows, how the driver stopped at every hairpin turn to let more bodies squeeze aboard while the wheels spun in the mud. You tell him about the old woman next to you, face like a walnut and no shoes, carrying a plastic bag full of mangoes. You mention the sloth hanging like dirty laundry from a tree limb. 

Focal Distance

The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera

 – Dorthea Lange