Sitting with Friends



Today I am friends with the sunshine and the long, long time.
I am friends with the whistling of the man who lives next door
and his uninvited music, which I’ve become accustomed to.
I have taken good care of my baby and the bee-bop-dee-bop.
I’ve decided to stick by this Sellotape dispenser, come what may.
I am also enjoying a fleeting relationship with the shadow
of the jasmine on the carpet. But the little cross-legged Buddha
on the mantelpiece is my most steadfast friend. He says he’s read
the letter in the envelope I’ve tucked behind his back. He says
he understands. I am live-in companion to this dark wooden furniture.
Its heaviness and sadness comforts me.  And I’m on pretty good terms
with this bamboo back-scratcher. Alan Ginsberg put a back-scratcher
in a poem once, and now I’ve done it too. I am a friend to fortune any day,
a friend to anything that shines out there beyond the corner of my eye,
and friend to what may come out of the blue. I am friend to all my dead.
I am a friend to the late afternoon light and have dedicated myself
to the company of quiet sighs. I am friend to those faded curtains
with mildew-speckled hems. And I’ll be friends I promise you, quite soon,
with a pan of small potatoes in the kitchen. They’re waiting for me now,
salty, cool and white in patient water.
 
Annie Fisher


If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Annie Fisher would be pleased to hear them.