Roger Reeves
Posted in Announcements
April 8, 2025 at 7:00PM ET
Join us for a reading featuring award winning poet Roger Reeves, hosted by Carolyn Forché.
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be made by April 1st to Patricia Guzman, 202-687-6294, pg654@georgetown.edu. A good faith effort will be made to fulfill requests made after April 1st.
Children Listen
–Roger Reeves
It turns out however that I was deeply
Mistaken about the end of the world
The body in flames will not be the body
In flames but just a house fire ignored
The black sails of that solitary burning
Boat rubbing along the legs of lovers
Flung into a Roman sky by a carousel
The lovers too sick in their love
To notice a man drenched in fire on a porch
Or a child aflame mistaken for a dog
Mistaken for a child running to tell of a bomb
That did not knock before it entered
In Gaza with its glad tidings of abundant joy
In Kazimierz a god is weeping
In a window one golden hand raised
Above his head as if he’s slipped
On the slick rag of the future our human
Kindnesses unremarkable as the flies
Rubbing their legs together while standing
On a slice of cantaloupe Children
You were never meant to be human
You must be the grass
You must grow wildly over the graves
Published in The New York Times on August 12, 2021.
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