Adam Day

[And while awareness of and empathy toward issues]

And while awareness of and empathy toward issues
that concern others is important; difficult to know: who might
also voice of when, how or why. What is the proximity
of experience, identity, &c. necessary for one to speak about
for another—in what context is representation permissible,
effective? Of course, there is always firsthand, or what appears
to be, as in:

‘White woman across aisle eyed me entire
flight, gaze widened, neck craned as I (her eyes)
removed (her eyes) my shoes. What could say?
Sometimes I’m afraid I’m carrying a bomb, am
sleeper and don’t know when I’ll awaken. I should have
said: Identity isn’t an end—it’s a portal, a deportation
from the country of mirrors, an inflection within a
question, punctuation in the sentence of birth.’

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Adam Day is the author of Left-Handed Wolf (LSU Press, 2020) and of Model of a City in Civil War (Sarabande Books). He is the recipient of a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship for Badger, Apocrypha and of a PEN Award. He is editor of the forthcoming anthology, Divine Orphans of the Poetic Project from 1913 Press. His work has appeared in the Fence, Boston Review, APR, Volt, Lana Turner, Iowa Review and elsewhere.