David Keeling Chicago, IL
David Keeling was born and raised in Charlottesville, VA and is a graduate of Middlebury College. His poems have also appeared in The Ohio Review and The New England Review, among others. He currently lives in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago and works for the New Teacher Project, a national non-profit organization.
In the morning, it’s easy
to imagine a world
where everyone is basically
good. At least, for a few minutes,
we are all too tired to do anything
despicable. Even the tyrants
yawn like children
as they bundle themselves
into their ribbon-crusted
bathrobes, while the serial killers,
blank faces still bearing
the red imprint of their sagging
couches, stare at the morning news
to catch the weather. Somewhere,
the rapists and child-molesters
are crawling out of their own sweat
to beg from the coffee pot,
and the corrupt preachers
cannot seem to find
their glasses. In these hours,
it is hard to believe that these
are among our neighbors,
all of us junkies for
the snooze button, all of us
up and coming into ourselves now,
driven by the light and
our own growing hunger.