Well, me oh my, I
borrow my days like
some well-loved guitar,
the acoustic strum and
how it rescues the room,
tie a new string for every
year, all its glories and
scars, close my eyes
and hum, lips pressed
in a smile, or a secret,
every chorus brings me
closer to myself –
I line up my polaroids,
try to trace the threads
of time, pause to listen,
does melancholy sing
somewhere in the eaves
of my being? But, ah,
I shrug and grin, musing
at the idea of all these
selves sharing a room, how
glad they’d all be to hold,
in their palms, the promise
of so much becoming,
a one-man relay, I
am a thousand poems
in a constant color,
golden orange and
spilling warmly into
the room.
Nostalgia is a papercut
until we learn to
visit those pages
without trying to stay, I
love those yesterdays,
but, my God, the sun
just broke through
before the rain even
knew to stop, and
my fingertips will devote
hours trying to write
this moment into some
slapdash permanence,
already gone and
giving way, flight
and the lovely return.
michael king 