Three poems about Glasgow and Berlin by Kathleen Heil
Welcome to The Commuter, our home for poetry, flash, graphic, and experimental narrative.
Issue №50
Welcome to the Situation
[Winterfeldtplatz Markt, Berlin]
The market makes me feel good
about myself because the people
don’t go there to feel good
about themselves. The exchange
rate I do nothing about but
watch. It has nothing to do with
the vendors beneath my house. Eighties music and
smokes are stupid enough to make me feel
nineteen again. I like my age though other folk
seem worried for me. Not fair, for it’s not the same
is it as good for me as it was for you?
Back at the nest someone asks me
if I’m in the 30–40 bracket. He’s with his dad,
who looks seventy. I am 33, and think about
the uncanny valley: all those fore-
heads that couldn’t be reached. We’ve all
gone winter, gone deep, the snow digging
its heels in the crevices of trees.
Welcome to the Situation
[Tempelhof Airport, Berlin]
Shrieks sound the same
in any language. I spoke English
to avoid the shame I felt of being
alone. On the Feld, the sun
spoke in rays blown open
like a dinner party gone wrong.
Admit it, you were a little bit pleased.
Incongruous, like Wagner
playing in the hipster bar.
Outside, the kids scream why
you can’t help but wonder
how they’ll grow up,
as every Mercedes is getting more
extreme. Oh, oh, oh, it’s impolite,
but the Feld doesn’t mind
the loss of air traffic control
and you’ve never taken a bike
across the tarmac before.
The wind almost leaves
an invitation in its wake,
still with no name, just
the insistence that it will
all triumph before.
thermodynamics
Saturday night in Glasgow,
along the snow-packed sidewalks
needled voices say, Please,
say, I know what I’m doing, say, Mum,
say something sweet. Why do I doubt
the good, insist
on shaking my fist
after the bad. Some dumb self-
punishing mechanism.
I’m trying to be better at
forgiveness, that little floe
forged in the center of the Kelvin
determined not to melt;
I admire its stubbornness,
tire of the familiar
refusal to surrender all.
Stefi, when you opened your hands,
let them alight on my head,
the passerine trapped in the chest
where more might give gave flight.
About the Author
Kathleen Heil writes and translates poetry and prose. Recent poems appear in The New Yorker, Beloit Poetry Journal, Fence, Witness, Sixth Finch, Barrow Street, and elsewhere. More at kathleenheil.net.
About Recommended Reading and the Commuter
The Commuter publishes here every Monday, and is our home for flash and graphic narrative, and poetry. Recommended Reading is the weekly fiction magazine of Electric Literature, publishing every Wednesday morning. In addition to featuring our own recommendations of original, previously unpublished fiction, we invite established authors, indie presses, and literary magazines to recommend great work from their pages, past and present. For access to year-round submissions, join our membership program on Drip, and follow Recommended Reading on Medium to get every issue straight to your feed. Recommended Reading is supported by the Amazon Literary Partnership, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. For other links from Electric Literature, follow us, or sign up for our eNewsletter.
“Welcome to the Situation [Winterfeldtplatz Markt, Berlin],” “Welcome to the Situation [Tempelhof Airport, Berlin],” and “thermodynamics” are published here by permission of the author, Kathleen Heil. Copyright © Kathleen Heil 2018. All rights reserved.
We Are All Winter Now was originally published in Electric Literature on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Source : We Are All Winter Now
