My favorites
were the first to go:
verisimilitude, Constantinople,
crickets. Then went, plucked
from me, words I rarely needed;
but they were beautiful, nonetheless:
retribution, car port, fairgrounds.
In my chair at night, an open book
splayed, they jumped
from me like sparks; they floated like orange embers
across the yard; they lifted like burned paper lifts
from a fire: lawnmower, justice,
sweetwater sea. Some I’d feel
disappearing. It’s like that dream where
you’re on your belly and with one arm
you’re holding a dangling friend by his wrist
over some great abyss
and you know you can’t hold him.
You know he’s going to fall.
But fuck if you don’t hold on.
After, in the distance, the words dematerialize;
it isn’t complete darkness. If I close my eyes
I see outlines, white shadows.
But no matter how hard I listen, I cannot
hear them: calla lily, railroad, endlessness.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 16, Issue 4.
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