My Friends

Ali Power

my friends
create the mood
by describing it
turning off all the lights
a place in our minds
wakes as in water
we dance alone and with each other
we make circles around each other
get close then step back
then get close again
my friends
the furniture is round
the furniture is covered
in bluets
there are drugs my friends
why be evasive
when you can listen to an audio book
about a biologist
on a mysterious expedition
to Area X
an area cut off from civilization
today I’ve spoken to no one
and I feel fine
but feelings aren’t facts my friends
and I’ve eaten the last of the cheese
and table water crackers
and I have no salary
but I will hold you

About This Poem

“I wrote ‘My Friends’ for my friends, specifically for my friends who are poets. The lines ‘the furniture is covered / in bluets’ and the appearance of table water crackers are nods to the James Schuyler poem ‘The Bluet.’ Schuyler so often put his friends in his poems, something I’ve always loved about his poetry and others of the New York School poets from whom I learned to see poetry not as a hobby or an occupation, but as what Carter Ratcliff calls, ‘a certain modus vivendi, a way of life.’”
—Ali Power

Ali Power is the author of A Poem for Record Keepers (Argos Books, 2016). She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Poetry by Power

A Poem for Record Keepers

(Argos Books, 2016)

"When I Was a Glacier" by Emily Skillings

"Sailing Bones" by Alan Felsenthal

"Fifty-Three" by Eileen Myles

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April 24, 2017