by Anne Kazak
This Looks Like a Job For Me
I met me on the Six Train
heading down from Grand Central
just below 14th Street I must
have been twenty-one, tattered
Harris Tweed overcoat, Steigmuller’s
Life of Cocteau open in one hand
the other holding a Happy to Serve You
to-go black coffee looking for answers
in the pages, in the coffee,
in the girl waiting in Downtown Beirut,
in the Sonic Youth song on the jukebox.
I looked right through me
so far removed from my burning self
searching for Kerouac’s roman candles,
now so still and in-tune with the vibrations
of bees and pines a hundred miles north,
in the city only for a friend’s birthday,
the friend who was also a friend
of the burning boy/man in torn tweed
still searching the city for clues,
but me, couldn’t/can’t see
this new/old person standing
in the swaying subway car
not understanding
how we could live
without the barred owl’s
coyote-like cry from the tall spruce
deep in our woods
Rob Spillman was the editor of Tin House from 1999-2019, and is the author of the memoir, All Tomorrow’s Parties. Bluesky: @robspillman.bsky.social IG: @robspillman.
Anne Kazak is a psychologist and photographer who cannot remember a time when she didn’t have a camera in her hand. Using cameras or drones, she loves landscapes, capturing the beauty of nature, focusing on light, patterns, and telling a story about places. Her journeys draw her to abandoned spaces and the documenting the history of institutions. As vestiges of the past, these places prompt us to rethink the present. She also frequently uses diptychs or triptychs to juxtapose discrepancies and reveal unexpected connections. www.annekazakphotography.comhttps://www.instagram.com/annekazak.