Julie Sheehan

Iowa

After the Memorial

This morning, fog banked in, refractory,
of course. Except for one gull, all else blank.
Then dress shoes, lit candles in the heels, flanked
an apse in the dead poet's memory.
We know that there are infinite views of illusion,
just as there are varieties of children,
so how could the sun's September gaze send in
a light like pollen dusting my work boot's tongue?
I'm loathe to look, though I am not yet light,
nor air, its scatterer. An hour ago or better
I gleaned, from living eyes so plate glass blue
they might have been two dimes flipped in the gutter,
a total loss. Yes, it could happen to you,
the optic theorum of crosshairs trained on hindsight.
119 Total read