Poetry
Reacting Calmly & Quickly
by John Gallaher
The fissure between what we were thinking and not being able to say it,
is of little consequence
to next week's hectic, Scotch-taped ideas
that shatter the small vases,
even if we don't know what to do then, beyond dealing with the crisis
on its own terms, a broom maybe,
or punching the shark in the nose. Then we're able
to take our phone numbers with us, so it all turns out
because it's over, and there are people
sitting around reading.
There's a series of waterfalls ahead, I've heard, so it's a risk
that's worth taking, waterfalls being so pretty,
though as soon as we think we've a lasting one, the next
causes us regret it. The cliffs were too small, or we
added a thirteenth floor. That wasn't the paint
we picked out. And we're standing there with the sense
we're in a car underwater, and we might be upside down,
or aligned with the newest way they're just joking
and looking the other way amid optional vegetation.
A film crew will follow you, they promise. And a little
dog. You've a big white smile,
even if the sky is painted in later, or changed to evening,
and there's this sneaking suspicion
we jumped right to the middle of things.
It's the same memoir that we put down a few minutes before,
to tend to the lilacs wilted into the bowl on the counter
that just yesterday you saved from a broken vase. And it's the same
page,
I'm sure of it, though I don't remember what it says,
I must have been thinking of the lilacs
or the paint.
And there's nothing to do but start over.