I cannot justify my wanting you
still, even to myself, even on days
like this, when I wander, lost in a haze
of past lives. Was it nineteen o’ two
or in nineteen twenty when we first met
seven years before my grandmother’s birth?
Under remote bridges you hesitantly let
me kiss you, a calculated risk worth
chancing among the needles, used condoms
but no, that was nineteen ninety two, after
your marriage failed, justification then
for my holding you deep in Creve Couer Park, a secret
folding, intricate, within itself, as between two men,
not as the opening of a pure passion,
but a spiraling inward. An unresolved question.
like this, when I wander, lost in a haze
of past lives. Was it nineteen o’ two
or in nineteen twenty when we first met
seven years before my grandmother’s birth?
Under remote bridges you hesitantly let
me kiss you, a calculated risk worth
chancing among the needles, used condoms
but no, that was nineteen ninety two, after
your marriage failed, justification then
for my holding you deep in Creve Couer Park, a secret
folding, intricate, within itself, as between two men,
not as the opening of a pure passion,
but a spiraling inward. An unresolved question.
Residing in Cypress, Texas with his partner of ten years, David-Glen Smith teaches English Literature at Lone Star College – CyFair. He received his MFA at Vermont College, and his MA at the University of MO at St. Louis. Currently, he and his partner have welcomed a baby boy into their lives. For more information visit: http://davidglensmith.blogspot.com/.
Categories: Poetry
Tags: 1, David-Glen Smith, Found, Found Fragment 1, Fragment, hyperbole, melancholy, poem, poet, poetry
Melancholy Hyperbole 