Michael Dickman

excerpt from Nervous System

(Excerpt)

When you look down
inside yourself
what is there?

You are a walking bag of surgical instruments
shining from the inside out

and that’s just
today

Tomorrow it could be different

When I think of the childhood inside me I think of sunlight dying
on a windowsill

The voices of my friends
in the sunlight

All of us running around
outside of our
deaths

Michael Dickman

Michael Dickman was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Field, Tin House, and Narrative Magazine. Michael is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

http://www.blueflowerarts.com/michael-dickman