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Easy to Forget
by David Matthews

It is easy to forget
How alone I walk
There with the poem
There at the window
Alone through the pages
Hammered out by the word
Through the hours at the window

Easy to forget
How alone it all is
Seduced by the words
A compliment, a gesture
The embrace of a friend
The kiss of a stranger
The measured applause
When it falls like confetti or tinsel

Easy to forget
How alone it all is
When the audacious young women
With their brightly colored hair
Lick their lips
And say they will call

Easy to forget
How alone it all is
Sentenced to the desk
Handcuffed to the poem
Entranced by the trope
As she plays herself out
In the measured embrace
Of word-mad time

Easy to forget
In company of those
Who say they wish me well
When none among them
Will drink the wine for me
Wait silent by the phone for me
At the end of the long day
Crawl into the coffin for me
Or savor bitterness hard won
Swish it around
And around and around
Until the taste of it
In my thoughts turns to something
I wish to call beauty

It is easy to forget
How awful the walk is
When time again
To set out alone
Time again to head my self home
To drink cheap grocery-store wine
Maybe write three or four poems
Before the sun comes up
To throw what light there is on things











 

 

 

 


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