Fall 2010

They can’t help it something
in and under them is changing
from one degree of disobedience
to another something like
the beginning of a riot
where anonymous troublemakers
pass their own commotions
along from elbow to ribs
to the next available elbows
to knees to groins the molecules
upwardly mobile at the expense
of all others above them
being shoved aside around
and up against it and down
and turned up again to be
recycled and driven under
just as suddenly and lifted
yet again and wanting
to get the hell out of it now
as soon as they can find
the way between these
less visible less deserving
bubble-faced stumble-bums
and rise as they were meant to
into disappearing whiteness.

—David Wagoner


David Wagoner, who was born in 1926, is the author of many books of poetry and fiction. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Washington.