Written and read by Ron Padgett
I dreamed I was me
writing this poem
and then I was
When I was a child
people in movies
who got shot in the back
always died
So when the bad guy said
“Turn around”
you’d better not do it
There is no such thing as a poem
Only this poem exists
Or that one
and the bullet flew
Becoming human
must have been terrifying
so they found things
to distract them
They dreamed they were they
in a Cadillac
There is only one Cadillac
in the world
The others are dreams of Cadillacs
I saw the water
but could not make it be
anything else
The glass was neither half full
nor half empty the glass
was not there yet
Like how morning is just around the corner
but you can’t see it it’s
still dark
though you can hear the Cadillac in it
the engine running
the Cadillac not moving
until the dim edge of the corner appears
in the dawn
and everything gets to be there for a moment
before it’s there
From Very Collected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2025)
(c) 2025 Ron Padgett, Coffee House Press