Five Poems by James Lilliefors

 

Crossing 

 

Whenever your thoughts  

become too ponderous, 

ponder us. 

Ponder how we met, how well 

we fit, like a winsome  

two-letter word. Like “us.” 

 

Only a “t” stood between us then 

(before “u,” yes, after “s”),  

rigid as a crossing guard 

telling us to wait.  

But seeing nothing coming, 

we learned to slip below  

its perfectly outstretched arms 

and cross together. 

 

How empowering it was to look back 

from the other side and see  

the ponderous thoughts  

still collecting there, restlessly  

waiting for permission 

to find their own forms.  

And to think, thankfully:  

that’s not us anymore.

 

 

Shadow Boxers 

 

Here again, that strange time of day           

when certain shadows of the past  

meet less-then-certain shadows  

of the future, unwitting partners 

sparring dimly by interior light. 

 

Our compulsions come out  

to watch, with their vicarious desires, 

before the shadows finally recede  

again, into another day – or is it night?  

The two always circling each other  

like anxious prizefighters,  

looking for a way in. 

 

Reminding us, if only briefly,  

what we started with.  

What we have left: a lifetime. 

 

 

The Real News 

 

At 7:32 this morning  

existence stopped, 

without warning. 

The clocks were all stilled, 

muses stopped whispering 

the sirens were silenced. 

Morning ended, forever.  

 

At 7:47, existence resumed. 

Clock-hands began turning, 

an orchestra could be heard  

tuning to an oboe’s “A”  

and we all breathed easy, 

telling each other 

it hadn’t actually happened. 

 

In this way, we kept  

the real news to ourselves  

once again. 

 

 

In the Leaving 

(Ode to Jim Beam)                

         

The last time I had you inside me 

was ten years ago today,  

when I decided to ignore tomorrow’s  

knocking – as familiar by then  

as drain-water flushing through wall-pipes,  

whisking away all resolve and doubt. 

 

You’ve come knocking since,  

to remind me – how lovely the late light  

looked through your golden-brown  

mist, how the cool cavern-y air tasted,  

soaked with your sweet heady vapor. 

What it did to the soul.  

 

We can celebrate together if you wish,  

though I will not welcome you in, 

  

knowing now who you are, what you did.  

But we may reminisce from a distance 

just the same, recalling what we went through  

together, and what it cost.  

Then I will again find life in the leaving  

and celebrate what remains.

 

Gone 

 

“They couldn’t find anything,” my father says,  

holding me with his hard blue eyes. 

“They couldn’t?” I reply, not sure what he’s saying. 

“They looked. The surgeon said it was all gone.” 

“Well, no, sweetheart,” my stepmother interjects,  

reaching for his hand in this sixth-floor hospital room.    

But when she leaves his bedside several minutes later,  

and we’re alone, he says it again:  

“They couldn’t find anything.” 

“What do you mean?” I ask.  

“They looked. The surgeon said there was nothing there.  

It was gone, just like that,” he adds, as if a miracle has taken place   

at Sloan-Kettering, not a lobectomy.  

He says it father to son, knowing  

that I will not contradict him. 

This is the third operation. He has come back from each  

a little different. Now he stares at me like clear blue sky,  

wanting only for me to nod before she returns. 

I nod.

James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist and novelist, whose writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Washington Post, The Hooghly Review, Door Is A Jar, The Miami Herald and elsewhere. He's a former writing fellow at the University of Virginia.