TUNING OUT
by Ken Siegelman, Brooklyn Poet Laureate

It’s those novel ways we learn
To fumble with forgetfulness
Which seem artfully designed to take the pressure off of us;
Allowing those around us to understand
That the train of thought pulses on unevenly -
On tracks which bend in curves
Allowing us to hesitate
As all around us will concur
That it’s the prudent way to go...
The deaf man hears his dinner plate
Gently placed upon the kitchen table
And zombies in from a distant room
To listen to his shouting wife
Rave on about her day -
And there’s always that drifting stare
To something which isn’t there
Which often seems to be the advent of epiphanies
By later middle age;
Or of reading glasses pincered on the ends of noses
While the person right in front of you
Disappears completely,
And of course, your calm rebuttal
That you were deeply thinking
Of what they had been saying.