What Light: This Week’s Poem: Matt Rasmussen
"What Light: This Week's Poem, sponsored by Magers and Quinn Booksellers, brings you a poem every week by a Minnesota poet, selected by a panel of writers and publishers. Get the new anthology of What Light poets from Magers and Quinn!
YOUR GUIDE TO THE ONE BEDROOM HOUSE OF LIFE-SIZED ORIGAMI
Dining Room
On the blue grand piano
an incense stick leaks smoke
upward like a thin fountain
filling the ceiling’s pool.
Bedroom
A young woman sits
on the edge of the bed
next to a man who delicately
finishes creasing her fingers.
His patience only silenced
by hers.
Living Room
A young boy bends
the slender branches
of a tree whose leaves
are lying all over.
In spring, he will
unfurl tiny buds pinched
deep inside the paper twigs.
Dining Room
A thin ash-shadow remains
of the incense now woven
into a grey curtain of smoke.
The blue grand piano
in the corner crowding
the room, the whole house,
continually fills the air
with the song of nothingness.
The grey curtain shakes violently
as something approaches.
It is the wind.
Biography
Matt Rasmussen’s poetry has been recently published or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Passages North, Dislocate, The New York Quarterly, LIT, and Redivider. He currently lives in Hopkins, MN, is a participant in the Loft Mentor Series, and teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College and Rasmussen College. His chapbook, Fingergun, is available from Kitchen Press.
Poetics
This poem began with an e-mail from Chris Tonelli who viewed a Matt Johnson sculpture and sent me a web link to an image The artist is Matt Johnson. Chris said The Pianist reminded him of my poetry and that I should “check it out.” How this poem relates to Johnson’s artwork, I can’t really say. I only saw the digital image, which led me to the door of the house described above. It allowed me to look in the window before going inside.
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