ANTHONY HAWLEY
XVII
If they spelled it Coloradio
It might be too full
Radio is our love and we are trapped
Not in wide open space but
We each rely on stations to play one song
over and over
Radio can barely hold so much self-pity
The idea of
Won’t fit into a poem
So imagine Coloradio
All of us listening to self-pitying tracks,
campfires night and day
The ripped flags, the severed allegiances
The chicken wire twice
Folded inside Coloradio
we’d be hostages
To our own longing
XL
Who stepped forward
from atop a cliff
Only to fall off
He claimed to have
heard a signal
Steady pulse as
password
To other realm
But it was only the
echo
From the bombsite
First blast, next
flare, line like liquid
Quartz geode
granite
Shifted
A face appeared for
a minute, then disappeared
The clouds were a
facsimile
Likeness in the
form of mockery without regret
The atmosphere is
unlikely to allow
What the falling
voice said aloud
XIIL
Someone who was
staying was always never there
Someone who was
being new was just that
Someone who was talking
was almost never listening
Someone who was
dressing was almost never beautiful
And so sadly went
on dressing
Someone on occasion
Did not enough work
Though seldom were
they drinking
A beverage besides
coffee
Who came to be charming
Was almost never
speaking
On occasion smiling
To be sure that
someone else was happy