“Quickly Aging Here,” a poem by Denis Johnson

“Quickly Aging Here,” a poem by Denis Johnson—

1

nothing to drink in

the refrigerator but juice from

the pickles come back

long dead, or thin

catsup. i feel i am old

now, though surely i

am young enough? i feel that i have had

winters, too many heaped cold

and dry as reptiles into my slack skin.

i am not the kind to win

and win.

no i am not that kind, i can hear

my wife yelling, “goddamnit, quit

running over,” talking to

the stove, yelling, “i

mean it, just stop,” and i am old and

2

i wonder about everything: birds

clamber south, your car

kaputs in a blazing, dusty

nowhere, things happen, and constantly you

wish for your slight home, for

your wife’s rusted

voice slamming around the kitchen. so few

of us wonder why

we crowded, as strange,

monstrous bodies, blindly into one

another till the bed

choked, and our range

of impossible maneuvers was gone,

but isn’t it because by dissolving like so

much dust into the sheets we are crowding

south, into the kitchen, into

nowhere?