GARY LUNDY
dates in life remain hidden.
you remain in unimagined past. as faulty memory.
the table broken. slants toward floor. tips toward anonymity of feet shuffling
by. a three week old infant.
the dali lama is right. love absents itself after a few years. the surface rocks
left to right.
i saw a book lying on an adjacent table. intended to ask about it. perhaps
buy it. but lost among the adjacent talk stirring amidst the artificial light. the
unsteady tables.
the one broken where i sit. memory forgives forgetfulness. i may return later
to see if you are here.
bounce.
this is really a part of the same. a following sentence even. yet now divided
by lines and spaces.
new barriers to separate. such as those between the two of us. timelines
and separate addresses. separate countries. it gets to feelings. enormous.
with music always playing the background luminous.
detached retinal lines. all along the fault failures. voices disembody.
become less in more moments.
tentative steps toward a longer piece. which might have been a good look.
winter wool. air chill snow flurries.
you insist upon slow nature.
sun lit cloud cover. to hurry. an excuse to escape. consequence as years
separating yes. and no. it doesn't help. the alcoholic suburban tempura.
you relax. stretch. out of one of many times enough.
the eyes bright in blue promise.
to pen hope against white despair. drought accompanies piano sax. enough
to admit if only. where a table meets chair. demand for comfort.
to slow the rising hour approaching noon. you gather quiet thoughts into a
passenger rail system. large black as bird wing spreads. shrill face of
accustomed semblance.
to find a word naked in its presence sans pretense. yes. sit working out non
melodic thoughts. accompanied by drum machine. canned music. like that.
to if only touch buoyed in impossible comfort. as time love recedes and rival
options convince utterly. liken you to old serial film. characters displayed in
campy costumes. forever back lit illumination.
consolidate time slow multiply. await approach of smile. and garden hand.
love what may have come. even though before precludes. knowing
documents various disconnected moments. a disjointed fabric. hopeful. like
itself again humble skin light.
a music that promises what could be. what might have been. were we birds.
were you to stretch your feathered wings. shadow cover my prone being.
he now instead. momentum pronounced as a kind lag. of skip beat on ice
pack. suddenly interrupting your smile. sky blue wakens this winter cloud
cover. cough and water pipes burn hot.
gary lundy’s poems have appeared most recently in Incidia, Spider Mirror, Show Your Skin, Oxidant | Engine, Antinarrative, and Diaphanous. His second full length collection, each room echoes absence, was recently released by FootHills Publishing (March 2018). gary is a retired English Professor and queer living in Missoula, Montana.