Thursday, April 13, 2023

THE POEM FROM DISTANCES: FOR KAZUO ISHIGURO

interviews are like forced confessions

I would have said to you in an enchanted wood

had I been a friend nor just a distant reader

how do you endure them

how do you evade

confessing anything at all

in a private language

how to assuage the grief they may have

your interlocutors

that you may not think what they think

about the way you think or that you may not

think but only in fragmented dreamed up telegrams

that they resist your being a starlit kite

and tug with every motion of their mouths

to bring you down to earth where you can confirm

what they already decided you mean anyway so why ask

where you barely lived anyway perhaps they think

when it comes down to it, but this is their job

to ferret it out; politely and with strange respect

build cloud on cloud and then disappear

for a thousand years.

finding the village different when you return.

you can be sure they will still be asking you

the same questions.

mary angela douglas 13 april 2023

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