Claudia Keelan—Are You Anyone

Are You Anyone

by Claudia Keelan

Are you anyone
really are you someone
and which one do you think

Are you watching the water now
the water now falling
upwards then down
from the fountain

You weren’t watching only were you
you were listening too and which came first
when you saw that you saw
the water falling

Is anything itself really is it
I mean is that part
of what she meant
what anyone meant
when looking they also heard

When I’m not anyone
are you no one too

When we say we are we sure
is there agreement
who are we
& whee whee whee
where is home

The leaf takes the tree
but not me
though they blow blow blow
at my feet

When they say we
there is no no
no agreement
they’re not we
and whee whee whee
we are home

The wind hits the pane
there is pain
blown in the rafters
it looks like leaves

Could I be a leaf
Could I and what kind

Once I knew you were me
there was someone sweet in the sound

Mr. Birdsong lives down the lane
his house has fallen from the tree

When will he sing again
When will I again be me

Claudia Keelan is the author of six books of poetry including Refinery (Cleveland State University Poetry Prize), The Secularist (University of Georgia Press), Utopic (Alice James Books), and Missing Her from New Issues Press (2009. Born in California, Keelan has taught in universities in Iowa, Boston, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Colorado. Since 1996, she has been at the University of Nevada, where she is Professor of English and Creative at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and affiliate to the Black Mountain Institute, as well as editor of the literary journal Interim (www.interimmag.org.) Her honors include the Jerome Shestack prize from The American Poetry Review, the Beatrice Hawley award from Alice James Books, a Creative Achievement award from UNLV, a Silver Pen award from the Library Board of Nevada, and grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Under the auspices of Interim, she is partner to www.lyrikline.org, an online poetry archive founded in Berlin, whose mission is to serve poetry through translation.