The Reversal
Where was I when all this was happening?
Lost in the woods, watching TV, dreaming
the wrong dreams—but how can a dream be
wrong.
Dropped in the story of the past like a
glove
that you’ll never get back, its twin bereft
at the back of some drawer. Forgive me:
I still wind the clock in a world where
time
counts your steps & corrects as you
type.
That anecdote you polish, that photo
you frame & unframe, that memory
you hold over a flame to feel again—
when you die in your sleep you die alone.
I wish I’d known. I wish that touch was
kept.
This afternoon my phone rang. I answered.
Double Sonnet for the Wrong Man
Well, you’re dead now. Died back in
October,
a perfect month to die in. I wonder how;
I always figured something well-oiled
from a hand-tooled case, pressed against
your
forehead. Does anyone shoot themselves in
the heart these days? Besides me, of
course—
the old me, who wanted to like you
based on nothing but our affinity
for times & styles before we were
born...
but didn’t. I always remember Jules
telling me you were a dangerous man,
the sort of man who might pull a gun
during an argument. Instead you stole
a wife. Dangerous! Well, it didn’t last.
A wife, not dangerous. That didn’t last.
I used to wonder how many cigarettes
the two of you smoked in those dim days,
those dark nights. So long ago I don’t know
how to feel about the fact that you’re
dead;
death’s the only fact that ever gets
checked.
But the fact that, of all people, she
picked
you as her
escape hatch—I shook my head.
The wrong man, the wrong man, I thought & thought,
even if I was never the right one.
A good craftsman, though, I’ll give you
that.
It didn’t matter. It didn’t last.
She did better. I did better. But you,
who knows. Do I hope so? Sure... sure. Why
not.
Tragic Backstory
What if that was all you had? No new arc,
no brooding shots to kick off the plot,
no meet cute, or any meetings at all.
Your life the hidden painting the x-ray
shows, but there’s nothing painted over it.
No second act because the first act
never ends: a one act with a blackout
& a curtain call from the empty seats.
Is that just childhood? Family romance?
Or the accident that severed the spine,
cracked it like a mass market paperback,
days falling like pages from the middle.
Oh, Tragic Backstory, my vampire
in the mirror—let me tell you again.
Gregory Crosby is the author of Said No One Ever (2021, Brooklyn Arts Press) and Walking Away From Explosions in Slow Motion (2018).