Farewell
JOHN GREY
|
It is the time to be
without sight of you, for the blaze in my brain to simmer down, cook just enough tears to blanket my eyes. I'll restrain my heart with force if I have to. I'll be a dutiful gangster and take my memories for a ride. It is the time to move my whole camp to another county, find new quarters, perfect the silence around me. And I will learn to play the glockenspiel, join the local branch of the Theosophical Society, keep a cricket in a jar-- anything, so as not to see myself as a failure. A brief farewell will begin the process. It's a combination of caring and a slap in the face. There has never been another word like it. Only hello comes close. |
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in That, Dunes Review, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Thin Air, Dalhousie Review and failbetter.