Notations From the Social Grid (Special W-End Edition): "Gifts" by Kirk Wilson

 



Gifts

Kirk Wilson

I kept my life in a small room
with pale blue walls
and brought it back
little presents from the world

This is for you I would say
This is for you

Sometimes the gifts
died in my hands
and often I could not pay
the price of their redemption

I could never be sure
they were appreciated or how much
they wanted to be in the place
where I had brought them

The room filled with less and less
space to breathe so instead of gifts
I began to bring stories
that did not end but slipped away
around corners and over horizons

I brought premonitions
and resistance to closure and left
at the end of each day
looking for more

Copyright © 2022 by Kirk Wilson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 6, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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