Narrative Nightmare At the beginning I lifted the stones in the standing pool of your wordless grace When I thought you weren’t looking And tracked your pupils when I nudged you casually into the past Wincing as they flew at times askance I measured the beats between our kisses Always worrying about the music you’d made with others. Then I scoured your favourite books for clues and found Older men who had ruined themselves for girls, Younger men who drowned; Boisterous guerrilla poets who shared their women And attacked each other over style; Lovers who evaporated or united on the wings of a whim . . . The wet streets glistened amber under the lights As the cold moved in And during the vast middle silence of My coffee hours before the dawn I lined up the vectors and packed my bags It was a long long time before I realised we’d been fashioning a narrative anew And far too late to turn back ________________________________________________________________________ Emanuel E. García, Leaf Thoughts, One Hundred Poems, 2013 |