John Wilkinson

The lights have fallen dumb and refuse to travel,

preserving their angles is all that concerns them;

clothes hang in their creases, while in seed-banks

weevils curl up at the futility of spoiling green further.

This time had been expected to have legs, to move

formations across the plain. This time believes love

a moving force, but takes delight and bandages it,

runs closed captioning behind closed doors. What if

an elevator loses purpose, flashlights fail to search,

if empty buses void the timetable – did you survive

Rome’s marauding gangs, did you survive plague?

Lovers take turns round apartments, seek to bring

stars to earth, starring the recesses of bodies plainly

felt, might that stop the fever? – Courses deviate,

the very bricks lift off to touch skin, skin will float

song that pulmonary rises, falls and rises in the street.

29 April 2020

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John Wilkinson is professor in the Department of English at the University of Chicago and director of the program in Creative Writing and the program in Poetry and Poetics. His first collection of poetry, Useful Reforms, was published in 1976. More recent publications include Reckitt’s Blue (2013), Ghost Nets (2016), and My Reef My Manifest Array (2019). A selected poems, Schedule of Unrest, was published in 2014.

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This video is an excerpt from a longer reading featured in “Writers in Residence,” the University of Chicago Program in Creative Writing’s virtual reading series. For the full reading and more videos in the series, visit the Creative Writing YouTube channel.