Until

This face looking back at me never lies.
I feel as if I’ve cheated, drawn the winning
ticket, passed the exam without suffering
through classes and boring soliloquies.
Then I see the sagging jowls, the dark
circles, those lines—so many of them—
marking time and various scars
invisible to the unaided eye. When death
failed to claim me, I inhaled the ecstatic
fumes of second chances, faked my way
through another sixteen months of drudgery
before pulling the plug. Now, seven years
later, a thousand miles to the north, I study
you lying behind me in bed, unaware
of my gaze, of the power you possess
even asleep, and I wonder how to retain
this minute, these days and all that will unwind
so slowly, so quickly, inevitably, until.

“Until” was published in (print-only) Shō Poetry Journal last June. I was thrilled to have poetry published in this excellent journal, and am pleased that the next issue, coming out in January, contains two of my recent pieces. Thank you, Johnny Cordova and Dominique Ahkong, for your continuing support! I urge you all to peruse their site, and to send them your best poetry.