I Wanted the Screen Door of Summer Opening sounds of blackbirds everywhere
everywhere in the day lost in sun opening the screen doors of summer
blackbirds aglitter in afternoon haze
all day long riding a fiddlehead
in Mahler excess calling thither The TV screen afterlife reflects trees outside
jets overhead in the yard I am powerless in the air
after the stock report before jeopardy the table laid out our hopes laid out
I wanted the screen door of summer a dew drop gazing ball
utopia bent and snapping —Peter Gizzi Peter Gizzi is the author of Some Values of Landscape and Weather, Artificial Heart, and Periplum and Other Poems 1987–1992. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Originally published in the September/October 2005 issue of Boston Review | 
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