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      September 28, 2015FinalityRob Talbert

      I drop a quarter in a gumball machine
      and a gumball rolls out.
      End of story.
      I press a button on a jukebox
      and the first measures cannot be unplayed.
      Even when my wife does show up
      you are still staring across the table,
      still reaching underneath it.
      Navigating blind but never making
      a mistake, never grabbing the wrong body.
      I order a beer and a glass fills
      with what will never be given back,
      only changed and made useless.
      I need to live twice
      so I can love twice.
      I need the salmon in my veins
      to fight against a current
      other than you’re running
      out of time.
      All of the shadows
      down the dark street
      from the bar to the burger joint
      smile upon our stumblings.
      They watch the gestures we begin
      but don’t finish: the retreating mouth,
      the distancing of wrists aching to be pinned
      against the bricks.
       
      Their darkness
      is so available,
      so perfect for crime
      it’s as if they saw us and whispered,
      Oh yes,
      I know very well
      how your song ends.

      from #48 - Summer 2015

      Rob Talbert

      “I’m a restless guy, especially at night. I can’t sit still in my apartment while the city is fired up and tumbling. I need to go out, go to nightclubs, see a friend, hear a band. If I do this enough I’ll eventually wind up in one of those moments that shimmers, what Colin Wilson called ‘the mystical,’ when suddenly through some trick of consciousness the world is understandable. I guess I’m just constantly looking to feel stirred, so, ya know, poems.”

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