Jason Wee (b. 1979)

SELECTED POEMS

The Foolish Knows

Or do we ignore 
the little we risk, 
the possibility of

denial being art, 
the impossibility 
of sleep without fear

of the morning,
forget wisdom, do we know 
what art is, the two-seater

that, pulled out, forms his bed, 
blue except for 
a brown aurora

left from a 4a.m.
incontinence, his hair 
freshly wet, falling

as pipings of black gesso 
as he tells me this, 
or the L-dopa

taken at maximal dose 
to release the ropes 
that, waking, he finds

himself bound in, 
that I remember from 
Oliver Sacks testing on

those indigent and asleep, 
or maybe dreams, 
the unconscious promising

another world, that's it, 
or it is in the risk 
of seeing, when Sacks

describes Parkinson 
as an astronomer, 
London his space,

the bodies in untrammelled 
motion, constellations, 
comets, am I

now describing a star 
when I cannot tell 
which is Sirius,

where the Crux is,
I am lost, I can show you 
ignorance, am showing

while I write some 
directions to an end where 
I might find some answers.

by Jason Wee
from An Epic of Durable Departures (2018)

 

SELECTED POEMS: “Before it unmoored…” >