Listen to Dustin Junkert read his piece:
For Wallace Stevens
1
A clear bowl left on the stepping stone
in the garden, filled now with rain.
This is a stain on my shirt,
not a mark of style. My impatience
for familiar things, likewise.
I think of what last year’s garden must feel
about my love of this year’s.
Two carnations—a pink and a white one—float
wearily around the bowl. One desires
so much more than that.
2
Don’t stop now. Strip down
even that sweet simplicity
your soul snugly wears.
Cut down the color green
into bright green quarks.
Who is capable
of talking this way?
Brilliant snow-white soul before me—
still, I need more. I want more.
What good is clarity, at, say, night?
3
The imperfect is our paradise.
An egg is the only possible shape
a soul can take. Simply hand
someone an egg if they tell
you otherwise.