Scott Simpson · Poetry

I. The Meeting Inside

The World We Mean · Authenticity and the Self · Singing · I. The Meeting Inside

The original line breaks, stanza spacing, and placement are preserved. Long lines scroll horizontally.

Poem segment 1

At first

the self seems singular.

I think.

I decide.

I know what I mean.

Then conversation slows down

long enough to notice otherwise.

You say something certain

across the kitchen table.

Five minutes later

another sentence arrives

pulling in the opposite direction.

Not lying.

Not confusion exactly.

More like different weather systems

crossing the same sky.

One part rushes toward explanation.

Another distrusts it immediately.

One wants to protect the wound.

Another wants to display it

under bright lights.

Meanwhile the body reacts first—

tightening in the throat,

heat rising through the chest—

before language catches up.

And somehow

all these movements

wear the same name:

me.