POEM IN WHICH I LOSE TRACK OF TIME
Denise Duhamel | Poetry
First gone is the year I was born—was in 1961
or 1691? My analog clock melts, Dalí-style,
and my calendar pages fold themselves into origami.
I show up to the dentist on Christmas and baste
a turkey on the 4th of July. What’s in style?
Should I wear my go-go boots or Uggs?
My pillbox hat or disco rainbow wig? I’m awake all night
and yawn at dawn. I take a train that rolls over
a penny, then all my IRAs. I’ll never retire now—
not to bed and not to my grave. Even when I lose
my breath, I’m gaining days.
Denise Duhamel’s most recent books of poetry are Pink Lady (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Second Story (Pittsburgh, 2021) and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In Which (2024) is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami.