The Well of Imagination

Writers are observers. Or perhaps absorbers. Small moments, fleeting images, subtle gestures, seep into the bloodstream and pool in the well of imagination. And when we unknowingly summon them, they rise up and form themselves into words.

Susan Kelly-DeWitt captures the experience here, and the writer-fear lurking at the bottom of that well:

Maybe I Have No Ideas

Eating a turkey sub from the school cafeteria
I suddenly think of the blonde woman
whose marriage is falling apart and the dark
circles under her eyes, as if two moons
had lost their light there; I think of how
she so unevenly layered the pickles and tomato
with the pink turkey flesh and the odd way
she has of wearing what she calls a "wife-beater"
T-shirt, even in winter. Her fingers have left
their slender depression in the bun so in
this tangential way we touch. And then
it strikes me that maybe I have no ideas at all
of my own, only other people's lives where
they've left their imprint on my husk.