Stranger. Adam Clay

the words apart

      and determine what a grin can be.

      I’m not suggesting that grace deserves

      a particular place in the world.

      I’m suggesting that limitations

      are rarely deserved by those

      who impose them. Absence deserves

      more. You said waterlillies

      when I’m pretty sure you meant

      something else, perhaps something

      more distant. The sky was tinged

      the color of a hangover that day,

      and I knew better how to talk

      to myself than to you. And then somehow

      it’s Tuesday again

      and a school bus speeds down

      our street between the parked cars

      like some kind

      of generous distraction from

      whatever mundane thing

      was hanging over everything else.

      Maybe that word was empire? Perhaps

      you were hoping or desiring

      a bottle to place this house

      (like a ship) into? I’m

      hearing one thing

      and speaking another. My

      shirts aren’t pressed. Hell,

      they aren’t even clean

      and their colors

      have run elsewhere.

      In my mind, I see them bounce

      on the laundry line

      and wonder why.

      I didn’t understand what you meant

      at the time, but it made sense

      when I saw not a single bird in the woods.

      The climate dissolved overnight

      and you couldn’t have been more disinterested.

      A squelched fire hangs in the air

      and in the memory

      for years to come. It’s a terrible thing

      when we stop

      and consider how having enough

      means something

      different from even a year ago. Think

      of a swallow flying

      from one tree to the next

      and think of something from your own

      life that runs parallel

      to the experience of the first tree. There’s

      nothing. It’s afternoon all of a sudden.

      It’s afternoon? If it is

      it’s a weird one, a place unfit for a poet

      but not a place

      unfit for other people

      who calmly disregard

      everything but winter

      in a terrifying way. An idea

      along the edge of a season

      means much more. An idea

      is one born from nothing

      and destined to tunnel

      its way into a hole meant

      for a creature or for air seeking

      out a place as only air does.

      Overwhelmed? That’s only half

      of it. You can replace me

      if you like. You can look

      straight into a mirror and feel frantic all without me.

      When I say idea, I mean content.

      If you thought this was both the ending

      and beginning of things,

      you were wrong. It’s all up

      in the air, all past, future,

      and present at once. One thing is certain:

      we can’t see past

      speaking, and if we could,

      it would only be a thread.

Don’t Look Back

      It isn’t clear why one would want to see

      the source of a river, but perhaps

      stepping across the headwaters

      amounts to something memorable.

      This does not take into account

      the fact that our memories only reflect

      the moment we find ourselves in. Tomorrow

      it’s a distant sense of dread, but today

      it’s too normal for even

      the news. Each day is a fit of beginnings,

      and each day is determined to replace

      the next. Too long we’ve been silent

      on matters best left in the past,

      and I keep forgetting each

      righteous fact began as a trembling one.

Exhibit A

      Would it be enough to suggest

      the smoke from across the hill

      suggests a type of life or a type of living?

      I’d like to be stranger than I’ve been.

      One bite taken from an apple and left

      in the yard for an animal

      to scavenge. Could this be a day

      or any day? I’d like to think so.

      I’d like to think there’s something

      to be said for closeness

      to death, as if nearly leaving this world

      can color our existence in a particular way

      or another. I miss you, we might say

      to ourselves in those moments,

      but those moments lumber ahead

      without us where another person

      is making copies, sipping the last bit of coffee

      for a day going,

      a day already half-gone. I miss you,

      we might say to each other in those moments,

      as if repetition can be a way of

      or even a minor attempt at remembering.

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