The Best American Poetry 2016 CHRISTOPHER BAKKEN Sentence No one predicted we'd be sitting there, just come in from a blizzard to that bar, and three beached fishermen in the corner would interrupt their beans to stare at us, then return to eating, since we were strange, but cold enough to be left alone, and that to expect their calm dismissal of our being there showed we understood how things worked then, in the dead decades, after most of the city had vanished on trains, or had been drowned in foreign ports; and therefore, when the priest arrived with his ice-crusted shawl and frozen cross, crooning mangled hymns, his head gone to praise, we'd think it right to offer him a seat, would carry his stiff gloves to the fire, and fill his glass with wine and pass him bread, and would suffer the blessings he put upon the empty wombs of our soup bowls; and who knew we'd pretend to sing each verse of the tune he'd use to condemn us, but would have no answer to his slammed fist, nor the thing he'd yell to be overheard by everyone there--when you stand this close to the other side, don't embarrass yourselves with hope--as if that would be saying it all, as if he knew we already stood there, as if we could mount some kind of defense before snow turned back to water in his beard. from Birmingham Poetry Review Excerpted from Best American Poetry 2016 by David Lehman, Edward Hirsch All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
