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Watching Li-Young Lee Write a Poem

I wish I were paper, soft under the spade of his pen,
a prototype, a thing filling with him. He tills that white soil,
deposits mind-refuse, planting seeds of a poem.
He makes paper a yard with silence and sounds.
I'm desperate to remember everything. I write a picture
so I'll remember, write his gray shirt with its ring
of navy neckline, his simple navy blazer, his ears accepting
the descent of sitar notes, his immaculate stillness, the
small wrinkles on the sides of his mouth, and now this glance
over at the sitar strings, all his knuckles lined up, thinking.
I am watching, it’s just me and him in a bowl,
it’s just me and him in this container of a room,
everyone else vanquished to make space for this love affair-
he and I and my love of the button on his blazer, how his scalp
shows under dark lines of shining hair, and there,
the way he’s scratching his cheekbone, one two three times
with his first finger, these images build the memory
of the expert training me, his all-important scalpel
poised above the surgery.

 

Copyright © 2005 Adriana DiGennaro

Adriana DiGennaro studies literature and creative writing at Bennington College
in Vermont. Her first book of poetry, Peripheral Vision, was published in June 2001
by Writers Ink Press. Her poetry has been featured in Red River Review, BigCityLit.Com,
Ancient Heart (United Kingdom), Eclectica, City Writers Review, Poetry Midwest, Falling
Star Magazine, Long Island Quarterly, Triplopia, Clean Sheets, Sidereality, Southern
Ocean Review (New Zealand), Perigee and The Improper Hamptonian. She was on
Red River Review’s list of nominees for a Pushcart Prize in 2001.
Her second book, Acts of Contrition has just been completed. Her work will also be included in Whispers
of Inspiration: An Anthology of New American Poets edited by Darlene and Steven Manchester to be
published in March 2005 by Sunpiper Press and in the poetry anthology, A Generation Defining Itself:
In Our Own Words to be published by MWE Press in fall 2005.