Midweek Culture Fix: Poem for Leaving by Matthew Daddona

Every Wednesday, we will post a contemporary work of art (poetry, painting, photography etc) to get you through the rest of the work week. Our first Culture Fix post is a beautiful poem by the very talented Matthew Daddona, a New York based writer who works in publishing during the day, edits the Tottenville Review at night and can otherwise be found writing and reading poetry in various venues throughout New York.

 Originally published in InDigest Magazine.

Listen to Matthew reading this poem.

POEM FOR LEAVING

(for Kyla Bary)

 I

Is it the feeling you’re 4,000 miles away
and have left the oven on?
Someone will notice

two-dozen red roses lying idle by a fire
awaiting their turn.
Trust the neighbor,
trust the neighbor’s dog who bites
Dandelion heads clean off.

II

I regret to inform you
ten more ferries will disembark today,
two dawdling trains will come,
the lighthouse will con the fish
that swim centrifugally to shore.

III

This is the body of a poem
as it dead-man floats
closer to its title
centripetally,
without a purpose.

IV

More than to safeguard your books
I want to galvanize the long-winded passages
that flutter in your absence,
busier than Joyce winning at pinball.
I’ve never read Joyce.
I don’t deserve a bed,
never mind a box of your books.

V

If anything,
you have left your window open,
not your oven on.

VI

On the day of your departure,
tourists have come
dosed in August rain
to drink water from hoses
and order coffee with explicit instructions.
The rain supplants the tears of a child
who watches a bug land in his cereal.
And surely,
they’ll be back.

VII

The packing is never done;
your neighbor searches for dandelions
his dog has buried near marigolds.

VIII

Do you want a Siamese twin,
someone to ensure that nothing has happened?
To be tied at the neck, stolen
souvenirs of each other’s worlds?