NewPoetry

Steve McOrmond

The hourglass has sprung a leak.
Everything feels like it happened
just the other day. Our first
kiss in the pissing rain, my foot
planted in a mud puddle, the idea slowly
sinking in that I might never love another.
When you parallel parked the U-Haul
on a busy downtown block, unperturbed
by morning’s peak vehicular melee, I knew
it was hopeless: I was destined to ride
shotgun, your eternal accomplice.
To live with you is to be indoctrinated
into the cult of radical candour –
you, the high priestess of TMI, and I
a reluctant acolyte, clinging to my silences.
I’ll tell you right now for free: as often
as the Golden Gate has been destroyed
in the movies, I should have said it,
should have said it over and over
again. I’m sorry, I thought we had all day.
Like a book that’s almost too good
to finish, I haven’t come to the end
of you yet. How many times have we
exchanged breaths, have I breathed you
into me, how many times have you taken
my breath away? Over and over, it is
over too soon. Walking along the street,
you say Hello, Dog to every dog you meet.