‘Some Transcendent Addiction to the Useless,’A Poem by Kay Ryan
–George Steiner, The Poetry of Thought
Unlike the
work of
most people
you’re supposed
to unthread
the needle.
It will be
a lifetime
task, far
from simple:
the empty eye
achievable—
possibly—but
it’s going
to take
fake sewing
worthy of
Penelope.
originally appeared in Parnassus: Poetry in Review
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From The Best American Poetry 2018, edited by Dana Gioia, series editor David Lehman. Copyright © 2019 by David Lehman. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
