We were on the phone when you said it,
the proverbial observation that time
speeds up and slows down depending on the activity.
It is believed that summer vacations go by
in the millisecond it takes to blink.
By that measure then seasons could change
in the months spent at a dentist’s office,
if a baby is born in the morning
his parents will find him middle aged by the six o’clock news,
and you will surely go gray in the centuries
it takes to file your taxes.
It was then that I remembered the way you looked
last night, your very own contradiction.
You lay there defying the familiar axiom,
a little god on a downy throne,
the sun awaiting the command perched
vigilantly on your softly parted lips.
With each breath clocks fell motionless around us,
hourglass sands poured out singularly
like the carefully rationed drops of a leaky faucet.
I watched as you slept there, entire eons passing
with each rise of your chest, small forevers in each fall.
In that moment there was no history,
no sound beyond the simple sighs that escaped you,
each an iron cable fastening me tighter
to you in this seamless moment, no light
except the dimming flicker of the last stars in existence.
I watched time not tick, but slide
and curve over the gentle dip of your elbow,
sit cross-legged sipping tea around
the perimeter of your navel, play cards
on the smooth musculature of your sturdy calf.
It is this image of you that now pulls me
from my newspaper crossword, makes me
rest my spoon back down in my half-eaten cereal,
and has me relive each brief infinity
before finishing my orange juice.
May 30, 2011
May 30, 2011 at 4:32 PM UTC
We were on the phone when you said it,
the proverbial observation that time
speeds up and slows down depending on the activity.
It is believed that summer vacations go by
in the millisecond it takes to blink.
By that measure then seasons could change
in the months spent at a dentist’s office,
if a baby is born in the morning
his parents will find him middle aged by the six o’clock news,
and you will surely go gray in the centuries
it takes to file your taxes.
It was then that I remembered the way you looked
last night, your very own contradiction.
You lay there defying the familiar axiom,
a little god on a downy throne,
the sun awaiting the command perched
vigilantly on your softly parted lips.
With each breath clocks fell motionless around us,
hourglass sands poured out singularly
like the carefully rationed drops of a leaky faucet.
I watched as you slept there, entire eons passing
with each rise of your chest, small forevers in each fall.
In that moment there was no history,
no sound beyond the simple sighs that escaped you,
each an iron cable fastening me tighter
to you in this seamless moment, no light
except the dimming flicker of the last stars in existence.
I watched time not tick, but slide
and curve over the gentle dip of your elbow,
sit cross-legged sipping tea around
the perimeter of your navel, play cards
on the smooth musculature of your sturdy calf.
It is this image of you that now pulls me
from my newspaper crossword, makes me
rest my spoon back down in my half-eaten cereal,
and has me relive each brief infinity
before finishing my orange juice.
this is the only poem i have ever written that i have been truly, genuinely proud of.