HOME / poem: A weekly poem, read by the author.

Repeats

Stunned by the lamp above my desk, a moth
landed on my glasses. I snapped my head
so sharply I hurt my neck and stopped work
on a small poem that didn't matter. The moth
was black with a smudge of iridescent green
underneath its thorax and orange head.
I was watching my neighbor's grandson toddle around
with an orange pail upended on his head
and bump into the parked car and laugh,
into the door and laugh and fall and laugh,
learning the hard and opaque by seeing nothing
and loving the feel of it, understanding nothing
of how serious comedy is, how odd to laugh.

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Barry Goldensohn is the author of five collections of poetry. He lives in northern Vermont.
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