David Ebenbach

WHAT WE WRITE ABOUT WHEN WE'RE NOT WRITING POETRY

The whole world is a very narrow bridge,
and the essential thing is to not be afraid at all.
-Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav

I am going to put some track lighting up in here,
and train the beams on various concerns:
water damage, social awkwardness, deadlines.
I am going to follow them around like search lights
raining down from the guard towers. We need a new
floor. We might as well get ourselves on automatic
bill pay while we're at it. Do you understand how
serious this is? I have a list that spools out of a slot
between two ribs. And so let's get some light on this:
it's possible we should sell the house and move,
or at least find an open-minded publisher and eat
a little bit better. The showerhead, the five-year-plan—
they need to be replaced. There are these interviews.
The light floods a landscape of dirty dishes, always.
Every morning, the sun over a crusty plate, every night,
the sun behind a clouded glass. We could really use
a filtration system, or at least a filing system, when
you get down to it. But slow down: there aren't enough
paper clips to even get started, and we need more light.
Always more light.

David Ebenbach is the author of Autogeography, a chapbook of poetry (forthcoming, Finishing Line Press), two collections of short stories--Between Camelots (University of Pittsburgh Press), which won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize and the GLCA New Writer's Award, and Into the Wilderness (Washington Writers' Publishing House), which won the WWPH Fiction Prize--as well as The Artist's Torah (Cascade Books), a guide to the creative process. Ebenbach has a PhD in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He teaches creative writing at Georgetown University.