An Artist Of The Imagined World
for my older brother
An old man has been blocking my view.
Get out! I shout. He shouts it back.
I open my mouth. He inspects my teeth,
ducks out of view. I splash my face,
he dabs his lips. I wipe my chin,
pick up a comb. He combs his scalp
and turns away. I press the switch
and shut the door. He lives my life
and lives my life. He lives my life
as I imagine mine, as I imagine mine.
KENTON K. YEE’s recent poems appear (or will soon) in Kenyon Review, Threepenny Review, Cincinnati Review, RHINO, Quarterly West, Poetry Northwest, Plume Poetry, Rattle, and other journals and anthologies. Kenton holds a PhD in theoretical physics from UCLA and law and economics degrees from Stanford. He taught at Columbia University and writes from Northern California.