Slow anguish filters dustily
through cracks in the pavement above
and staticky words dive under the wheels
in an act of weary irritation,
and you are leaning back in resignation
while the cigarette curled in one hand
goes on breathing, the idle corner
of an unnamable beast dozing in the dust
that rises like a desert and drifts to never:
the guileless list of how we came to this
minute by minute forgetting.Jeanne Obbard is a former recipient of the Leeway Award for Emerging Artists. Her work has appeared in APR and Atlanta Review, and is forthcoming from Poetry Motel and Philadelphia Poets