Small Talk
I dreamed you called without reason, picking up where we left the
water months ago. Origins without metaphor, so much beginning with
the guy who loafed at the nurse’s station. Of all the things from my
second decade, a particular game of chess listening to Hendrix on
Haight Street. Of all the things we’d sleep a little later if we drove. I
ask again for the sky, the midstride morning & like a friend between
the porch & the seat beside me. I’m forty-seven years old & up beyond
these power lines the moon still follows me home. Of all the things
between us on the bed in the dark, you reading this on your birthday.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2025)