quickly.

kay ryan has been named america's poet laureate. it's a wonderful thing. she's been my favorite living poet since i was twenty-two and, lonesome and living sparely, read this:

Action creates
a taste
for itself.
Meaning once
you've swept
the shelves
of spoons
and plates
you kept
for guests,
it gets harder
not to also
simplify the larder,
not to dismiss
rooms, not to
divest yourself
of all the chairs
but one, not
to test what
singleness can bear,
once you've begun.

kay ryan
that will to divest