Shane McCrae

ACADEMIC

We stand in mere wonderment, and the best part of things is closed to us.

—Goethe (translated by John Oxenford)

I hope I’m granted tenure when I’m dead

If I die unexpectedly.     My heart

Is bad, and I don’t exercise. Instead

I study to perfect my art  

The journals I should     try to publish in

In wooden rooms shipped bloody     sliver by

Sliver from the slivered hands of the dead men

Who built the rooms, who looked like me

I hope I would be welcomed by them like

I would,     if they returned, welcome them, open

Smile, open hands, if they came crowned.     I hope they

Don’t understand me when I speak

SHANE MCCRAE is the author, most recently, of Cain Named the Animal (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.