Actually Present

I don't remember you, but you keep
coming back. Is that what you think of me?
I've got two sick children. My little girl
has a hole in her belly and we have to pour
milk down her throat. So much the better,
make it difficult and meaningless as when
we turn into the park and hope the conversation
picks up somehow. My heart wasn't in it,
I think you knew even then, but I wanted
to rearrange thin bars of thought into a ladder-
like system of total devotion to the present
in its fabulous vanity. You were beautiful
to me, your lapel against your chin and the
orange light flinging itself from your mouth.
At the top of the hill you could see all four walls,
it was windy, the ceremony was invested
with deepening resolve, reflection, amazement,
cast out of the boredom at the center of all things.
I walked down the middle of the bus. I took
a photograph. I read about a town in East Texas
where a crust lowered onto all nakedness
and then dusted away with every glance.
I plugged in my computer and looked around
at the mess as you moved through subtle
modulations of texture from one end of the room
to the other. Something something something,
something something something.

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Copyright © 2011 Paul Killebrew All rights reserved
from Court Green
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission