Becca Klaver

TUNNEL VISION

A film by Noah Baumbach
and afterwards you asked me,
Are you the squid or the whale?
Usually I can answer questions
like these, usually I’m asking them,
but I couldn’t help mistaking
the way the giant squid cleaved
to the sperm whale for longing.
I suppose I’ve given my answer.
Even so, I agree with Walt --
it’s hard to stare plainly at
an event so massive, whether it’s
preying or devotion. High noon,
low sun, December 6. I’m tired
of not looking at things straight on.
I know we have this in common.
At least we’re not distracted
by the wrong thing. What do they
call that. Tunnel vision. Right.
At each stop, a tape-recorded organ,
its wail wide open, then shut.
Slee-eep in heav-en-ly peeeace.
Yes. I imagined it would be like this.
Is that major or minor? The key,
I mean. Next stop, Division --
no more tunnel vision, the dividing line,
etcetera. I’m sure the city planners
are big believers like me.
I’d like to go to their parties,
write the initials of dead presidents
on their medicine cabinets,
leave blueprints on cocktail napkins,
wink amiably across the room.
Thundering out of the tunnel,
I hold my breath, sure I’ll be
on the tracks when the voltage
doesn’t hold. Every city its own
dream with its own wish for waking.
Is that so ridiculous.
And if it’s all a dream, then where’s
my wet face, my sour breath --
where are my two good eyes.

Becca Klaver is co-editor of Columbia Poetry Review, a founding editor of Switchback Books, and a summer 2006 intern for PoetryFoundation.org.