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| homage to new york* (notes for a job interview) Poem by Della Watson |
when they ask you where you’ll be in five years, the only correct answer is to tell them where you were five years ago. and five years before that, and so on, until they can almost hear the screams of children on the playground, acting out the worst scenarios of war and torture, preparing their little routines for any scenario: doctor, fireman, ballerina, teacher, president. yes, you have been all of these things before. and now, you are interviewing for a job you once held for an hour at age four. your resume indicates only that you are an innovator in experiential labeling: post-retro-apocalyptic waitress, may 2004-january 2005. fashion-forward-tour guru, september 2006-april 2007. it is not possible to relive any specific joy, no matter how mass-marketed, and this saddens you. today you feel more adult than child, and this also saddens you. breathe deeply. remember, this is new york! you are creative! you are part of the same “going-places” motion that keeps a flock of geese flapping in the sky and a flock of stockbrokers shuffling on the sidewalk. it is still possible that this desk is only the beginning of a sculpture that you will someday create using billions of post-it notes and paperclips. and you have to believe you still have time to weld these rough scraps of a life together. you have to believe that you’ll be able to build a tower that won’t collapse, even if you saw off its legs. *homage to new york was a failed mechanical sculpture by jean tinguely, installed in 1960 at the museum of modern art and designed to self-destruct after 30 minutes. the machine was unable to destroy itself, however, and after an hour and a half, the flaming, still-intact machine was doused with water and hacked apart by firefighters. |
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Five years ago, Della Watson lived in Chicago.
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this poem is friggy awesome.