One Hour, October
Devaney, Tom
Time was never a turn-on the way it is with you.
Please know I distrust poetry and everything I say is wrong.
The errors of my most ambitious attempts make me laugh.
It should be embarrassing to share such a secret.
I hardly even try since I know this. A photograph might show
all that is hot and beautiful on Sundays before winter.
A poem continues, “The early winter sky, hazel with one low star.”
How unrushed the rush. A plodding novel remains still
for several pages taking its time (in the way novels can) to listen
to the skyscraper actually swaying in the wind.
A team of engineers worked out the math sixty-five years ago,
the paintings still have to be straightened every morning.
The compression, a down wearing less and less make-up
till the day the silence says your name.
She gets on a bus, he walks away, it’s all off-camera, it’s that big.
Copyright World Poetry, Incorporated Mar/Apr 2002
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved
