MICHAEL SHEWMAKERDoppelgänger
Who is this double goer, this familiar stranger following me with pockets full of moths— this moonlit strider, hawker who won’t pass by even when I pause to make a call—this changer of pace and posture, alley pisser with swaths of unrequited time? What does he spy in the limp rose on my lapel—in my unrest— the half-smoked cigarette, my borrowed clothes? Why must he check his pocket watch? And why must he escort me to my door in his pressed black tie? 120 The Paris-American Michael Shewmaker is a Wallace Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford University. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Yale Review, Southwest Review, Sewanee Theological Review, New Criterion, The Journal, American Arts Quarterly, and elsewhere. His work has been recently awarded a Gates Scholarship from Texas Tech University and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to attend the Sewanee Writers' Conference. Currently, he lives in Menlo Park, CA with his wife, Emily. He can be found online at www.michaelshewmaker.net.
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Next week's poet:
Michael Bazzett |