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Patrick Harper
poetry
TRAFFIC
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Windows on a street no one likes to talk about,
some of us stuck here in line for a drink.
A drink my dad and brother will share in Georgia.
We buy a bottle for the boy who doesn’t talk anymore.
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Contribute in a way that is enjoyable,
use the words he can repeat back with no hesitation.
His name falls so smoothly off my tongue people ask for more.
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Find a way to package and sell.
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Drop the glass with intention,
with the goal of picking up the pieces,
and mumbling an apology and a confession to no one.
To yourself in an empty kitchen.
To him in the fall.
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Glass door from the pool to a bed,
unwashed walls and pillows with a familiar purpose.
TRIM
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I save sentences for when I’ll really need them. So necessary it’ll be the only choice, so necessary I won’t even have to second guess myself. I stash them between this table and the wall. I’ll forget in a few hours and be reminded when I like the pattern of the one back home, or when I use the one on a plane ride to somewhere in spring. I lied once to a flight attendant about being old enough to have a plastic cup of wine, a glass of grapes. It helped me.
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I shaved my face the same day I watched a movie and saltwater stung the small cuts the razor left on my chin.
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I guess I saved it for today, scared I’d forget if I didn’t show it to someone now. Seeing the selfishness in others and witnessing the same in me so I can be better for the reader, for an old friend and a roommate.
