TWO POEMS FOR NELSON TRENT HURRY
(1963-2008)
(Published in The Antigonish Review, No. 85-86,
1991)
turn
(for nelson)
we
exist
in this divided state
where
what will happen
overtakes
what comes before
we fluctuate hesitate
stare down long hallways
waiting to turn to stone
the pound of flesh extracted
penitence
does not come quickly
I sit and watch
this being
this being
divided
like a suspended sentence
dangling
midair
a blade about
to drop
remember the time
we rode on the ferris wheel
watching the world
turn in our eyes
you discovered
on your arm
a spittle of vomit
from above
some child's sickness
heavy with turning
worlds
changing places with sky
I wiped it off your arm
you said
'most kind of you'
didn't you think
I would die
didn't you think
I would die laughing
in your arms
forever airborne
the two of us
even gravity
couldn't bring us down
I tell myself now
it is only a kind of
imprecision in our lives
an inexactness
that keeps us apart
these things
these turnings
blades, wheels
half gestures
abandoning hope
midair
losing touch
I keep waiting
the blade
to drop
the one in the mirror
(for nelson)
it was never
my profile
lying askance moonlight
starlit skin
gazed on
by one who loved
unquestioning
in this great universe
the joy to be
the unequivocal ecstasy
to be lying
beside you
now in my dreams
your face takes shape
beside maps of rivers
frozen streams
my being
flows
like glaciers
thawing
moves slow like granite
across tundra
without sound
without eyes
flowing
and you
watching me sleep
a million miles away
I always wanted
I always wanted to be
the one in the mirror
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