Volume 16 ~ Spring 2004 ~ ISSN 1543-6063

JOY KATZ

from The Garden Room


Desk without its chair

Once its
stepladderness is gone. As if catastrophe
and alphabet had given up—
air where the chair was
latitude, embankment.
How to say the air, that lapse, solidly
but not say rubble or decay.
The old smooth
of auditorium, assembled emptiness: a place to crave.

Adirondack chairs

At dusk they’ve scraped themselves off the brick—they rise, yes—
they are ready—a readiness a preparedness: they are certainly
not chairs. Boats’ composure: how boats look,
complete without you. Boats want for wind but not sailors,
look like they wait for wind, becalmed. Empty chairs don’t need us.

Metal motel chair

Something allowable in the arms of men,
pressed into shapes by airplanes. Room enough
on this back to climb. A back: simple and round as charms.
The chair knows how to fish, but is not given
to bursts of kindness. 
It takes my shadow, not minding.
Nothing penitent or worshipful, but slightly
supplicant to sun, to distance.
(The chair can live with distance; I cannot.)
The chair has patience. Nothing especially grand.

*

There is a chair across the garden, I think it is merely a chair.

Poems © Joy Katz 2004. All rights reserved.

Duncan Hannah
www.jamesgrahamandsons.com

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