Poetry
After
by Morgan HamillSay this is the last beautiful day
we’ll ever witness, time caught
green in the leaves, swinging. Like music
memory lingers, half-heard wind
chimes at the edge
of hearing—
Say the workers lay down their drills.
Say construction here has finished.
Say you left not long ago
on your bike for groceries.
How many years ago
was it? Say we didn’t talk.
Say we did.
Say I walked out of the room
for a moment—only
a moment.
Say anybody can feel sorrow
approach, but no one can know it
until the moment of witness.
Say the end
is not always
an act lodged in the past.
Say, quite simply, I miss
the sounds you loved: summer
cicadas. Say thunder. Say grief.
Say this strange, hard-earned
peace.
