The sun isn't even a pearl today-
its light diffused, strained gray
by winter haze-this the grayest
day so far, so when I enter the Wells
Fargo parking lot the last thing I expect
is to see the sun in the car next to mine.
I watch a woman make out with the sun,
and I'm jealous of the sun. Beautiful
beyond her desire-wanting the sun
so-she almost glows as she tugs
sweetness from his whiskers with
her teeth, and his drool runs down
her chin. I think the sun is a man,
but it's hard to tell in this light. No,
it's a mango, and I'm jealous of her.


About this poem
"For me there are sometimes these moments in life in which I feel like I've walked into a poem. I come to recognize a dramatic situation-a situation in which the doing or acting feels from my perspective not ordinary. And I feel a resonance with what I'm experiencing, and language comes to me to try and help me make something of it.

"Poetry requires attentiveness. A kind of inadvertent voyeurism or fascination-a type of attentiveness-and the happenstance that engenders some poems are a part of this one.

"And I remember my first mango, which I had years before my first kiss, which I remember too. And it goes without saying that Bemidji, Minn., is a very special place."
--Sean Hill

About Sean Hill
Sean Hill is the author of "Dangerous Goods" (Milkweed Editions, 2014). He is a visiting professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Sean Hill. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate