you should have known all along
things are not as they appear,
though once they do they are what they are –

sheer luck got you across the open space,
creating the illusion the mind’s eye
was to be parallel to the line of sight:

but a straight path, whether there or not,
is just a manifestation, to be negotiated
when one has negotiated with its circumference:

you do not see that far, and no compass
could help you circumscribe four cardinal points
of forgiveness from the forgotten intersection –

besides there’s one thing always remains
unanswered, how much one is willing
to remember to survive what one has lost –

you’ll move on: that’s what those gone
leave you with, yet you have to perceive
memory’s nothing but an endless dead end road:

From Closing Time, Brownsville, VT: Harbor Mountain Press, 2008 – © 2008 Mario Susko

The preceding text is copyright of the author and/or translator and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.