Early in June it was my privilege to hear poet Lesley Wheeler read as part of the Joaquin Miller Poetry Series on summer Sundays in Washington, DC's Rock Creek Park. Lesley read from her wonderful 2015 collection, Radioland, in which I found this mathy sonnet, a poem of twists and singularities and rich with double meanings:
Concentric Grooves, 1983 by Lesley Wheeler
Every whorl in the floorboard spins clockwise,
the grain widening round the stain, a stream
of years circling a burn-brown knot. Strum
and crackly gap. Music drowns a wheeze
from the overheated dog, his fur in knots
too. It's late and we're listening to the bass line
with our skeletons. Separately straining to learn
slurred words. Her family asleep. August night.
Every album by the Rolling Stones,
in order. It's Exile on Main Street. A sepia tint
from the streetlight edges between us; no stars.
Singularities in concert tees, teens
absent then, now gone -- but static's latent
in the record sleeve. Those revolutions, still ours.
More information about Radioland (Barrow Street Press, 2015) is available here. Words from Lesley Wheeler also appeared in this blog in 2010 at this link.
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