What a marvelous gift is the imagination, and each of us gets one at birth, free of charge and ready to start up, get on, and ride away. Can there be anything quite so homely and ordinary as a steam radiator? And yet, here, Connie Wanek, of Duluth, Minnesota, nudges one into play.
Radiator
Mittens are drying on the radiator,
boots nearby, one on its side.
Like some monstrous segmented insect
the radiator elongates under the window.
Or it is a beast with many shoulders
domesticated in the Ice Age.
How many years it takes
to move from room to room!
Some cage their radiators
but this is unnecessary
as they have little desire to escape.
Like turtles they are quite self-contained.
If they seem sad, it is only the same sadness
we all feel, unlovely, growing slowly cold.
Reprinted from "Bonfire," New Rivers Press, 1997, by permission of the author. Copyright (c) 1997 by Connie Wanek. Her most recent book is "Hartley Field," from Holy Cow! Press. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:
- The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
- Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
- American Life in Poetry #84: Connie Wanek;
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- American Life in Poetry #48: Walt McDonald;
- American Life in Poetry #30: Naomi Shihab Nye;
- American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
- American Life in Poetry #11: David Wagoner;
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