#michael baumgart

I miss seeing your name pop up on my phone I miss seeing you for dinner I miss listening to you I miss talking with you I miss your poems I miss you reading this

A glaring ocean, but a moment, then another wave. Wherever you may go the world is missing. A mere shadow of what it once was. A hundred silent ways full of utterly silent words until all that is left, a beauty of small things, a face, an expression, eyes. Nothing more. To look back is so human. She looked back at you and turned around and drove away. You were left with the sun, the nearest star, flooding the solar system with an older knowledge. She’s not coming back. But one day, wind in the trees and cacophony of birds singing, your light will be shining brighter than you ever thought. Bright enough to see what is right in front of you.

You are deep and I  dive in. Feeling for something underneath, a sunken ship, a set of keys, an ancient coin, a story. But I can't reach the bottom even after you insist you are shallow.

The large marble parts of you lined up along the Roman wall. In 300 BC your hands, feet, and head painted pale and black. Human hands touch each crevice and fold. Rictus of magic and possible nakedness, everything matters.

The acrid wisp of the candle snuffed. Do not let this world become blind!

Another hurricane stuffs water up under the eaves. I fit a bald fist into the drywall to let out the wind and pull out satin flowers and twisted silk handkerchiefs, the colour of damp seaweed.

You've lost hours to alternate flights, two flat prongs to two round pin outlets. You need heavier coins to eat tortellini in spilt red sauce down white shirts.

I'll take the elevator with him, she presses both buttons, only because you’re seeing him. Not because he is a stairwell.