Charles Simic always turns the familiar upside down; the poem is a coin flipped in mid-air, spinning over and over itself until you are no longer sure what is heads or tails. I return again and again to this poem when poetry becomes too serious; magic can live in the lines. So much of a story can be held in a handful of images.
Untitled by Charles Simic
I was stolen by the gypsies. My parents stole me right back. Then the gypsies stole me again. This went on for some time. One minute I was in the caravan suckling the dark teat of my new mother, the next I sat at the long dining room table eating my breakfast with a silver spoon.
It was the first day of spring. One of my fathers was singing in the bathtub; the other one was painting a live sparrow the colors of a tropical bird.
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