LEIGH STEIN • Dispatch from the Future

Dispatch from the Future

You can listen to me read this poem at the PBS Newshour Art Beat blog. It’s from my newest book, Dispatch from the Future

I am wearing my librarian costume.
Yes, I saved it from the fires.

In the future, when we say antiquity, we mean
state fairs and musicals. We mean affairs

of state, amusement. You left me a message
to say you were sad but you understood
which state I was coming from and I’m wondering

now which state you meant. West of us?
Or did you mean a state of mind?

I don’t have states of mind, I only have sweater sets.

I get dressed up and then I undress. I’d show you,
but this is a dispatch, I’m the dispatcher.

The calls come into my call center and
it’s my job to say, What’s the future

of your emergency?

Our new state flag is an aurochs,
not to celebrate extinction, but

to celebrate the wild part of us that died
in 1627. They moved her skull to Stockholm.

I wear my state flag like a dress.