Michael A. Flanagan

late

out the window
the dead horizon,
late silence and
all again what it
most often is, the
world letting time
slip into repetition,
the pain maybe in
that really there's
not much wrong in
your life, small
things but your
head fills, bangs
into nothing until
it becomes difficult
just to walk thru
a room, rise from
a chair, in a year,
you'll find the
same hour, the
same girl you
never talked to,
the same watch
you lost when you
were twelve, now
the eyes begin to
close, you turn
off the lights, you
move toward the
stairs, somewhere
a thousand voices
sigh, the night
hears its rumors,
the days go on

the woman outside my window

while her husband talks
to her i start to imagine
she is thinking about
licking the nipples of
a girl she kissed when
she was in the 8th grade,
her best friend, a girl
she hasn't seen in 40
yrs., how much she
would like to grab
that hour again, just
a small bit of time,
a moment in the
past, to see if
maybe it would
have unfolded into
everything, any of
the secret songs that
have run thru her
head all these years,
wanting so much
to take them out,
let them breathe

about