Poem of the Week | April 03, 2023

This week’s Poem of the Week is “Someone Else” by Claire Denson.

Claire Denson’s writing appears in The Cincinnati Review, The Massachusetts Review, the minnesota review, and Lit Hub, among others. She has received support and awards from Brooklyn Poets, Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the University of Michigan, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she earned her MFA. Claire works with The Adroit Journal and lives in New York. Find more at clairedenson.com. (Photo Credit: Kristen Brunelli, 2023)

Someone Else

When the principal called her name
on the intercom, she pulled me along.
I trailed behind as the scene warped

around her—dusty blue lockers
curled to the shape
of the breath she left, floor tiles

squirmed with the silverfish, lines
of caulk snapped—but geometry
stayed still for me. It’s going to be

alright, I told her. It’s going to be alright,
which I could say because I cared less,
not because I was uncaring,

but because it wasn’t happening
to me, and my life would continue
unaffected.

It wasn’t alright, they found him
in the grove with a bullet
in his head. We were 17

and worried about being chubby
and getting caught smoking
in those woods or fingered

in the basement, not the death
of our childhoods,
which is what the death

of a sibling means.
The fluorescent lights dripped hot
crimson liquid onto her cheek.

I watched the moment my best friend
split, and as she stood there
a statue of blood, I knew

anything could happen to me. I’m still
waiting. Me, wearing her face.
Someone else, my voice.

Author’s Note

This was a difficult poem to write because of its delicate subject matter. While editing, I kept asking myself: “How can I write about tragedy from the perspective of a bystander without being appropriative or disrespectful?” The answer, in every case, is in the treatment of the subject. The poem explores the unfortunate limiting nature of sympathy and lingers on the psychological impact on the speaker, who witnesses a horrible grief and is forever after fearful of the potential experience. It’s a poem that admits to its own selfishness and hopes that honesty is enough.