A Piece of Nothing*
That’s all there was to it. No more than a solemn waking to brevity.
– Mark Strand
And then, again, you decide to look at the sketches of domes in cities you’ve never visited, and probably never will, the domes having insinuated themselves into your reading and into your life. You don’t even know the names of the cities and towns but they’re pleasant to look at, and spark images of travel. There are moments when the armchair you’re sitting in by the window overlooking the park seems to lift off and float above the canals in the cities. You strike up conversations with strangers in languages you don’t even know. This could be a wish, or a piece of nothing, connecting you to the world.
Back to You
You begin telling a funny story then stop
insisting your delivery is off a few cents
as if you were comparing musical pitches.
You assume tomorrow will arrive as scheduled
with makeovers and callbacks and returns.
Not unlike most of us, yes?
Bring the car around, it’s time.
Shall we continue into the second stanza
which was left flopping around on the wet sand?
I can’t believe it’s you
but in fact it is
looking small yet provocative
for the part you’ve chosen from scraps of paper
blowing around the gazebo.
There was a time. . . .
Forget it. That was back when timetables
ran the show and the button
signifying the next move
was visible to all, even those in the nosebleed section.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
Visual artist and musician Tom Corrado has been writing poetry for over 30 years. A founding member of the Voorheesville Library’s Every Other Thursday Night Poets, Tom is also a member of the Capital District Poets Collective and the Third Saturday Poesy Cafe. His poems have been published in Exquisite Corpse, Metroland, and Hudson River Arts, among others, and anthologized in Poetry Don’t Pump Gas, Peer Glass, True Tales of American Life, and I Thought My Father Was God. He blogs atscriptsfortoday.blogspot.com.