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Ari Alkalay Appel is a poet and essayist who lives and works in Roxbury. He enjoys cycling and woodworking during his free time. He grew up in Newton, Massachusetts, where he graduated from Newton North High School. He studied at Whitman College in Eastern Washington, where he obtained a degree in Rhetoric Studies. He also studied at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina.

Ari Alkalay Appel

See Something, Say Something

I was writing poetry at 4:00 AM

On the floor in the center of the magazine

At the SeaTac international airport.

There was no one there but the occasional stray passenger,

Late night employee. I was harming no one.

I was writing poetry. I knew it was odd to be in the center

Of the floor, but space takes a different shape at night—

Hallways widen, corridors gain a new intensity, like rifles’ barrels,

Open areas feel like dance halls. Closets get their ghosts.

Night, yes, night. Night and day are each their own forms of

Intoxication. This was the night-time.

I was on the floor in the center of the dance hall, the closed food court

Where, as anyone who has been to SeaTac remembers,

The giant window towers over all;

I was there finding my voice through the

Poetry that came to me in that position

In time and space.

But position in time and space can be a crime,

Surely as it should be.

So there I was, writing poetry.

A police officer approached me.

What was the something that was said to him?

What was the something that was seen?

I would have liked to see

The transitory corridor between what was

Seen and said,

To write a poem about what someone saw

In me,

In the center of the magazine.

— Ari Alkalay Appel

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