“Friendship” by Dan Chelotti:
A friend gives a friend
a woodcut that defines
friendship and says that
sometimes the things
that don’t need to be said
are the things that need
to be said. It is true:
look at the woman who
climbs the mountain
with an ironing board
strapped to her back.
What is she after?
Should I bend
with the remover to remove
her hat? Interpret
her skull to reveal
the mystery? Reduce
the world to fact?
Or should I simply
Embrace the woodcut’s
trite smile, and grin
because her linen
is oh so crisp, her head
like a piano on a wire
four stories up.
(From x © 2013 by Dan Chelotti. Reprinted with kind permission of McSweeney’s Poetry Series, San Francisco. Photo by Flickr user Horia Varlan)
The Dish 