David Wright

	Bio His Books

A Selfish Sonnet of Thanksgiving

A cluttered, quiet home, paper stacked high
On every horizontal plane or chair.
A child whose greatest trial is her hair,
Tangled without mercy, every day. Why
Not sing slight psalms of gratitude when light
Pours onto hardwood floors? Or when coffee
Scents the middle of the day? I can see
From this window twenty sturdy, square white
Homes where grief arrives at night on colored
Screens that one deft finger can transform to
Happiness with a click. I say thank you
These jeans pockets hold just four creased dollars,
And when my wife comes through the kitchen door
We argue about laundry and not war


The Editor Falls Behind

In the wastebasket, beneath tissues and apple
cores you'll find the ends of poems, every sort—
the final five syllables of haiku (always
a stone, a sky, some grass); the back half
of a sonnet's closing couplet, rhyming
with nothing; an epiphany spun from deep
image, lying there next to an empty advil bottle,
never able to assert how the poet's private loves
must matter to us all. Dump the plastic wastebasket
on your desk and sort through the poem butts
and you might piece together one good smoking
poem, one set of lines to end all lines.