Came by and
felt
for you, in the pocket
where
the small thing we said
had turned,
the small quotation,
by
a river or
streetcar, I think
we
were just talking,
like people talk, no
real thrust,
the meal,
or what we
thought
of the lake, the neighborhood,
but this isn’t
it
anymore, it isn’t the
heading, or a letter or
a thing
initialed,
it isn’t this
enclosure
anymore,
I felt
the echo,
a small disturbance
of pressure,
here it is like a song
we knew,
a collection of songs
hummed
through,
gone
but also having
left,
eventually it is
an hour
superimposed
on the year,
longer even, as long
as we can look
back,
in the same
hour,
back,
until the detail
is poor,
until
it is just light
completely burned in,
and we
never were, as if
it could be
like that, as if
the looking back, our
turning and looking
back, in that
exercise,
we had an end,
and
then
look,
you & I,
all of a sudden,
having
never been,
but
in this
poem,
this
one.
—
Ryo Yamaguchi is the author of The Refusal of Suitors, published by Noemi Press. His poetry has appeared in journals such as Denver Quarterly, Gulf Coast, and Bennington Review, and his book reviews and other critical writings can be found in outlets such as the Kenyon Review, Boston Review, and Michigan Quarterly Review. He lives in Seattle where he works at Wave Books. Please visit him at plotsandoaths.com.