WAITING
My daughter is with me in the car.
She does not wait for anything.
She sleeps.
Sleeping may be waiting to wake up.
But I do not think it is.
I think it is something else entirely.
The clouds fill the plate glass window
of the store my wife has gone into.
There they share the sky
with teakwood bowls and brass candlesticks,
with rattan chairs and dried flowers
that look like tennis balls
sliced in half and painted impossible green,
with soapstone lion paperweights and
vases of colorless colors and shapeless shapes.
How serene they are as they float
in their twin heavens, in front of and above me,
these ghosts of the ships that we have
waited for all our lives but have never come in,
these blissful hosts for whom waiting
is the end-in-itself, O blessed end without end.
—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024
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J.R. Solonche: “Why do I write poetry? I can do no better than to quote the poet Art Beck: ‘Since You Asked Why’: ‘Poets are children until they die / and wine brings Christmas every night.’ The $200 shall bring many Christmas nights.”
