What There Was No Time For
We did not see the wandering island
nor the black-billed magpie up close.
The one was always distant, in flight,
while the other was heard of too late.
This lack mattered though minor
and not what we mentioned
when asked how it all was.
We spoke of other things
with wings, the elk plodding down
the river where it was shallow.
Everywhere we turned: mountains
and pines. We have pictures
as proof. Near the one lake
the one girl stood swirling
her black and white coat
while he took shot after shot.
It was a studied pose and known effect
they hustled through and then
moved on from, tearing down
the highway to the next scene.
This, too, saddened me, but
negligibly. Time, it seemed, was of
the essence for so many: the ticking
off of boxes, the buses lumbering
but still with schedules despite rain
and clouds that hid vistas. Damn
the gondola for having ceased
its transport due to lightning.
There was only one day left.
Sometimes I said, wait.
Along a Shore, Burning, II
after David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress with occasional phrases from Kate
I’m afraid I disagree with the past
being small. It is vast, and when asked where
I spend most of my time, I find it is there.
Rarely some far-flung future, unknown. Every last
one of those troublesome things you spoke of
are there: back in the day, for me. They are not
downstairs as every last one of yours was, unless
downstairs represents years and years ago.
As a matter of fact, perhaps, that is so.
We sometimes work in metaphor, don’t we?
Ah me! The remnants of those days…I ponder
them as I walk this shore and quote that sonnet
about how it shifts and something-something
is gathered in the gales. Love, I think. Love
surely. In fact, I went looking, too. I did. I had to
to get out of my head for a bit——it being full
and roving, e.g., we were where it never stopped
raining. We sauntered in sun. There was golden——
rod. There were the brown and brittle ends
of that flower whose name I have forgotten,
and snow. Too: where Penelope was born.
Still. On the other hand. I’m afraid, also, that
Tuesdays do not have a certain feel;
they are not Sundays or Mondays.
You are simply wrong. Even if someone died
on a Tuesday. First the father. And then
the mother. It was a Sunday he wrote I can’t,
anymore. And I wrote back. And then I didn’t.
I will give you this: there are things
we tardily become aware of. Certainly.
He never called. Or once, only once, and
the email was a work email, mine
an external email in need of caution,
especially with attachments.
The madness does run on. It picks itself up
to a fair clip——wind whistling in the ears
along this stretch of sand.
Kelly R. Samuels is the author of two poetry collections and five chapbooks—the most recent Oblivescence, a finalist for the Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award (Red Sweater Press, 2024), and The Sailing Place (Bottlecap Press, 2026.) She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee with work appearing in Blue Earth Review, Denver Quarterly, Laurel Review, and The Glacier. She lives in the Upper Midwest. Her favorite revenge tale is Inigo Montoya’s from The Princess Bride.
