The Busy Muse

By: Andy Posner

A rock skips across the sky,

Leaves concentric circles of cloud 

To wonder at.

You flung it long ago, before we met,

When your mouth was wet

With unformed words

No language could yet convey, and

Your eyes shined

Like incantations of light,

Shapeless, erasing voids.

There are no names

For the shapes that pass me by.

They are whiffs of coffee

Teasing blood with caffeine,

Dreams I forget the moment

They begin to make sense.

I cannot say how long

I stay rooted here:

Moons have formed,

Inspired poetry,

Crumbled into dust

Occluding suns, and I grow sad

The way I imagine 

Redwoods do—

Asking why all the rush.

Now a wet wind clears the stratosphere,

Pours cold air down the back of my neck.

You crest in a heave of foam

And effervesce on shores beyond my reach—

I grow seasick tossing in your wake,

Leaning over rails and wondering

Why you only come when hard things

Skip across the sky and I have

So much to take care of.

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Andy Posner grew up in Los Angeles and earned an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides financial services to low-income families. When not working, he enjoys reading, writing, watching documentaries, and ranting about the state of the world. He has had his poetry published in several journals, including Burningword Literary Journal (which nominated his poem 'The Machinery of the State' for the Pushcart Poetry Prize), Noble/Gas Quarterly, and The Esthetic Apostle.