1 New Poem

Stay Awhile

Someday I’ll smile upon this smoothing
of Sol bottle labels with thumb
under jazz band din, circular fluctuation
of brass man’s hands flick-fluttering
against a winnowing of Christmas light
shock, against the drawing-up of plentitude
maps we write as youth’s cartographers,
our muse of darkening light-fingered
persuasion,

yes, some day, but without the
flesh-coloured mortification of dancing
about these old-time words for a
great motion of meaning, stirring
renditions of pastime prizes and
the things that never seem as they
do in greeting cards, in Halloween films.

You stay, though, the breathing of
heavy traffic but a bitter memorial
of honesty’s forbearance and the
swung tempo of attempted lover’s
hands; you stay, though why
can be but yours to answer.

So, stay. Here. Just a little while.

Just until the greyer dawn of
years, just until forever stops.