Daniel Biegelson

YOU ARE A PAIR OF KNITTING NEEDLES ON AN OTHERWISE EMPTY ROCKING CHAIR IN A CLOSE UP THAT OPENS A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER MAKING A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THE END OF ALL THINGS

I’m busy today. Breathing. Lately 
I’ve been interested in the nature of time and its relationship to space. At least 
in a planetary sense. We’re always looking 
forward to the past. A confession. 
A profession—to return
to the right of return. In part. A part. Blown open and spun like glass. 
We are tabled. Cold or hot as stone. I am hiding in honest sight. Again.
Am I the light or the dark
peppered moth—‘smoke pouring out of a box car door.’ Am I the lonesome starred
whippoorwill. Windswept
feathers. Anonymous upon shagbark. Still hanging to the lunar cycle.
Approaching. 
You. Your organizing principle. The mirror 
of mine. I am still turning. Imagine 
a televised play and all the quick asides to the camera 
except you are the camera and sometimes you aren’t even you. Picture 
this: a giant lens
orbiting an earth. Moving
into position. Then magnifying the light. 


— with a quote from Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind.”

Daniel Biegelson is the author of the chapbook Only the Borrowed Light (VERSE) and the Director of the Visiting Writers Series at Northwest Missouri State University, as well as an Associate Editor for The Laurel Review. His poems have appeared in or are forthcoming from Cream City Review, Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Faultline, FIELD, Grist, Interim, Mid-American Review, Third Coast & Typo, among other places.