The Interview
- The Interview
The Interview
You ask who’s to blame. Me. I am to blame. For what? Maybe the whole business.
You ask where I come from. If I knew I’d tell you. Could be I’m still there. But right now
I’m by the river. I go there looking for four-leaf clovers. When I find one, I give it away.
If you come, I’ll give you a fresh one for your buttonhole. What I remember most
about the earth? A pond I saw late one spring afternoon, algae inching out from the edges—
a green sludge that by late July would meet in the middle, buttoning the pond up for good.
An old sweater. A blind man’s eye. I saw dragonflies too— jewels flitting over the water [End Page 266]
fastened to each other. It seems nature’s way, this buttoning. And there were creature stirrings
like castanets, and from far away an elegy of tin flutes. I hope you will come. I’ve pressed a few
four-leaf clovers in a book in case I can’t find new ones anymore. And since you asked, yes, I much
prefer quiet. A hush, a silence. The marbles of ancient Greece made vivid speech by gleaming. [End Page 267]
alice friman’s sixth full-length collection is The View from Saturn. Her work has received a Pushcart prize and is included in the Best American Poetry. She lives in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she is poet-in-residence at Georgia College.
