Poem of the Week: 3.30.23

"Question in the Back?"

QUESTION IN THE BACK?

by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira

How much time 
have you spent staring into your own eyes
in a rapid rearview reflection or
popping a pimple in the mirror or
bloated bodies buoyed in Lake Superior or
that picture, that video, that truth or
a bruise that doesn't fade or heal or hide or
is functioning a fatal fitting and forgetting or
not seeing what’s right in front of you or
behind you—or around you or within
or if you’ve lost count, can you say why?

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Read by the poet:

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Thank you for reading the Poem of the Week.

Last week’s post had all the pretty prose in it, so I’m a bit dried up writing to you. “Question in the Back?” is a poem about trying to articulate inarticulateness, or asking a question that questions itself until it is not so much a question but an answer.

I’ll leave it at that. It’s spring break at the high school I work at next week, and I’m needing it. If you don’t have the luxury of a seasonal vacation, I hope that you can find some way to take a break this spring.

Inquisitively, Ricky

Look I don’t always have a thematic picture for each poem but the post is more aesthetically pleasing with a picture included in it so here’s a random photo of some seats at Wrigley Field because there’s kind of the theme of a bunch of people sitting and questions being asked so yeah it works ok bye