The Lung Men
Look at the faint rain twisting
itself into the ground,
making dry things resign themselves
to different states of damp.
Watch silent doors opening, closing,
think of climbed stairs, rooms reached.
Hear minds unslam,
shadows chewing soft things
behind blind windows.
Saturday afternoons stretch flat
and dull as sheet metal, hushed.
Also Mondays, when those with nothing to do excel,
coughing into shoulders as they drink
in all that wheezing dust.
O! these days, weeks, times unfurl,
looping round each other’s sameness,
the same small-sky, small-fry emptiness. Curling
into laughter fit only to chase soft blue raindrops
rolling down the used-to-be
of scratched, unblinking glass.
See them catch at their reflections,
uncouth, their paths always uncharted, in mirror
after mirror after
unabsolving mirror.
Bryan Marshall plays the piano, drinks tea, used to work in wine, used to work in schools (guess which of those he preferred), likes walking, thinks a lot about writing poetry, and sometimes actually writes it.