David Ebenbach
City of Weather
It’s all we talk about here the way the sky
lazy after a hot bath
lies on us with all its weight
We change only to find ourselves damp again
Some weeks the rain comes and stays and leaves
only to circle back again
as though looking for lost keys
You’ll never find what you’re looking for that way
I think
But the rain persists interested in lost keys
but not advice
The ground forgets what it’s for
starts to wander off downstream
There’s nothing to hold the sidewalk in place
We close our umbrellas when we can
But here even the sun is a liquid
sweat on the glass buildings
The night pools around our homes
The night weighs against the apartment windows
And in the morning
We wake as though nothing
has yet been decided
David Ebenbach’s poetry has been published in, among other places, Beloit Poetry Journal, Subtropics, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. He is also the author of two collections of fiction: Between Camelots (University of Pittsburgh Press, winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writer Award), and Into the Wilderness (forthcoming from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, winner of the WWPH Fiction Prize). Ebenbach’s non-fiction exploration of the creative process, The Artist’s Torah, is forthcoming from Cascade Books. He has also recently received fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and he has a PhD in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in writing from Vermont College. Ebenbach teaches creative writing at Georgetown University.
Return to November 2012 Edition
It’s all we talk about here the way the sky
lazy after a hot bath
lies on us with all its weight
We change only to find ourselves damp again
Some weeks the rain comes and stays and leaves
only to circle back again
as though looking for lost keys
You’ll never find what you’re looking for that way
I think
But the rain persists interested in lost keys
but not advice
The ground forgets what it’s for
starts to wander off downstream
There’s nothing to hold the sidewalk in place
We close our umbrellas when we can
But here even the sun is a liquid
sweat on the glass buildings
The night pools around our homes
The night weighs against the apartment windows
And in the morning
We wake as though nothing
has yet been decided
David Ebenbach’s poetry has been published in, among other places, Beloit Poetry Journal, Subtropics, and Hayden’s Ferry Review. He is also the author of two collections of fiction: Between Camelots (University of Pittsburgh Press, winner of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writer Award), and Into the Wilderness (forthcoming from Washington Writers’ Publishing House, winner of the WWPH Fiction Prize). Ebenbach’s non-fiction exploration of the creative process, The Artist’s Torah, is forthcoming from Cascade Books. He has also recently received fellowships to the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center, and an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and he has a PhD in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in writing from Vermont College. Ebenbach teaches creative writing at Georgetown University.
Return to November 2012 Edition