Catalog: Take Two

I gave up.

But that didn't seem like a final answer.

So I went back to my pencil and paper, and worked on more catalog poems. This one seemed perhaps good enough to share. After I finished it, I realized that very few poets carry on a catalog (repeating the same words) for more than a few lines. Maybe I will try again, using that strategy, but for today, here is one that carries it all the way through...

Like any other day,

you breathe and a tiny piece of the world disappears, slips into
you; I am carried forward by the emptiness
you don't even know how you move me without trying
you exhale and I am like dust that turns in the light
you lift a woolen sleeve, pull, make shadows in the hall. I watch
you press an old latch—it sticks and I realize we still haven't fixed it
you have the smallest fingers, but somehow they struggle through
you stand between me and the world, what will I do if, without turning,
you, like autumn just outside this window, leave, or unleave.


Stream at Rockefeller Park photo, by L.L. Barkat. This post is in honor of One Shot Wednesday.