DAWN
you were playing god all summer, back when summer
meant being with you and winter meant being on a
different coast than you: playing god the way you
slowed time the way you quickened time the way
the way you sent the minute hand flying backward
with nothing but a whirl of a finger or a glance:
my little divinity you took me up flights of stairs
in the city and down flights of stairs in the city,
& from across the avenue you sent a kiss in the shape
of the flight of a bird, & it was a spell
you were casting, that i knew you were casting on me,
& one night under the full power of that spell,
in the ruby plush of a sofa, with stars low at
the windows, i said, love you to always, & you said
it back, & when i checked again i saw i was
mistaken, it was the ruby plush of a grassy embankment,
& the stars were low & it was a garden they lowered on,
& the city hadn’t been built yet & we were the only two
in the world, in a world your spell had made recent
—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
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Luis Torres: “The poem is an exercise in breathing. I found myself, as I wrote it, calling back to phrases I had written a line or two before. I merely allowed a breathing rhythm to take place. The exercise is meditative, and it grounded me not only in the ‘moment’ but in something much larger than any one moment concerning that individual, Luis. ‘We are always more than ourselves,’ cautioned J.P. Sartre.” (web)
