Manual for Small Museums
Amanda Nadelberg

A light bulb clad as language
hell bent towards sentences
a shape returning, the community 
cheering for someone’s descent 
I witnessed people reclining in a meadow.

Have you ever given yourself a haircut?
I am able to change the poem because
it’s mine. You are not here when I write it. 
You are there, waiting for nothing 
you don’t need to be said.

Delayed, I dressed to go outside to find myself. 
Here I am an idea. I could be you 
if you remember what it means 
to speak to one another. Thinking as 
ordinary means, thinking isn’t a poem. 
(The poem is not you.) To reset 
the elision of time, friends 
in the flatbed, searing. 

I have forgotten who was speaking. 
To be myself you make a 
trap for words in the woods. 
I am looking for something. 
If it’s not there, I don’t know
where it would be. A shadow without
a primary shape, a house without a door.

The Happy Life

It would take time to know 
what could have been 
setting lines when 
the idea of forgetting 
became morning’s minimal 
stakes as I watched C
and her second husband
live the way a garden
spends time 
the kitchen 
manufacturing happiness
What proved rudimentary
couldn’t depend on response
I ruined a soliloquy 
by writing back 
The river in sight
A lectern of flowers

Old Fashioned Roses

A last pile of snow melting 
into the shape of a dog 
spring turned on 
What language couldn’t do 
the sky dealt 
night like necks talking 
slips of paper 
as if saving a scene for later 
a place fixed in the mind 
I wanted to return 
everything to return to you