You return less often,
\nUnknown girl,
\nReturn for a spell
\nAs if you’ve left something behind
\nYou’ve been given
\nLittle time to look for
\nIn a huge room lit so poorly
\nI can’t even be sure you are there.<\/p>\n
O fading memory!
\nThe sound of a calliope drifting
\nOne summer evening.
\nThe fairgrounds across the river
\nLike a birthday cake
\nWith lots of burning candles,
\nAnd our two somber faces
\nReflected in the same window.<\/p>\n
Two strangers hired at a drunken party
\nTo appear in a film
\nBeing shot that night,
\nStrip for the camera
\nAnd act like sweethearts
\nOn a bare mattress laid out for their use
\nOn a warehouse floor
\nUnder the bright spotlights.<\/p>\n
Standing afterwards
\nWith their foreheads touching
\nAs if about to be hung
\nBy a single rope
\nFrom the high ceiling,
\nThen stepping away,
\nDressing with eyes averted,
\nAnd going their separate ways
\nIn the first light of dawn.<\/p>\n
![\"charles-simic\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/charles-simic.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> And act like sweethearts Standing afterwards By Charles Simic.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maintenant","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCharles Simic<\/strong> (b. 1938) was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1949, settled in Chicago, and attended the University of Chicago. He served briefly in the army before completing his B.A. at New York University. Simic’s work has won numerous awards, among them the 1990 Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur Foundation \u201cgenius grant,” the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and, simultaneously, the Wallace Stevens Award and appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate. He taught English and creative writing for over thirty years at the University of New Hampshire. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/charles-simic-150x150.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nOn a bare mattress laid out for their use
\nOn a warehouse floor
\nUnder the bright spotlights.<\/p>\n
\nWith their foreheads touching
\nAs if about to be hung
\nBy a single rope
\nFrom the high ceiling,<\/p>\n