The Summer of '98

In the summer of 1998, my creative output had waned significantly.  One bad relationship had given way to another which was by then on its last, wobbling legs.  I was staring down the barrel of my 30th birthday, with little to show for my life but 2 degrees and a job that was taking me nowhere.  By the end of the early autumn of that year, I would make some significant decisions:  I dumped the girl; I moved out of the townhouse we were sharing; and I decided that I'd become a lawyer.  By the new year, I was getting ready to move into my own place, had scored reasonably well on my LSATs, and was waiting for the outcome of my application to the law school at the University of Western Ontario (where I'd done my undergrad degree).  In the words of a story I once read (liberally paraphrased here - I believe it's Amy Hempel, but I've perused her Collected Stories, and can't locate it), I'd pulled out the junk drawer of my life and turned it upside down on the floor.

While none of these details are directly relevant to this publication, I think there is a sense of being on the cusp of something that also comes through in this poem.  It was published in connection with the Forest City Poetry Contest, in Afterthoughts:  Today's Best Poetry (which ceased publication in 2000), published by Harmonia Press right here in London, Ontario.  Until I re-read it , I wasn't so sure about this poem - now, I think I kind of like it.

The Slowing Fall

So many ants without love as trees shed

and terminal house flies by windows reflect

their dying

in 1000 eyes

The word slipped out –

this time of browning greenery,

trees going fiery, thinning

as the days;

of all the times

for one slow-burning

phrase to find

withered lips.

I said it quietly, imitating Autumn, uncertain

of words dying mid-air, and you

returned it

with geese

stabbing south.