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The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Real Time

We went to the theater
of real events.
It was sun melted on the sidewalk.
Nothing happening
that should not be happening,
and we listened to the street
cough with noises.
It was my life and your life
written on receipts.
Violets grew by the sidewalk.
I picked a whole bouquet
and threw my eyes into the center,
then gave them away.
There was a sound in the distance.
A bird with a broken wing.
Or was it a child calling to another? Saying,
come back to me someday!

But the direction was lost,
and I wouldn’t go and lose you,
seeking someone else.
Instead,
we walked on a shore of shells,
without shoes.
Collections of scrolls and spoons
and spirals,
though the ocean
had long since turned into stone,
and the smoothness of the shore
caused no pain.
By my door,
I showed you artifacts,
fossils older than the moon,
which I touch when I go in,
before retiring.

Published inIndex of all Poems