A Straw Dog member from Franklin County, Amy Laprade is a writing coach and author of “So Nice To Finally Meet You…,” “Behind the Magic 8 Ball,” and “Silence Is Premeditated: A Collection.” Her poem “Deafening” will be forthcoming in The 64: Best Poets Of The Year, Black Mountain Press.
Waiting
everything that ever mattered
rendered irrelevant
the future
gone dark
like outer space.
Constellations that’d once mapped the sky
to my dismay
no longer light the way
this
invisible thing
in the air
we breath
a strange kind of energy
unseen by the naked eye
nowhere…
and everywhere.
singular and absolute
the maker and breaker of all things today
tomorrow and until.
Without timelines
time is timeless
rhythm and routine
tethered to the wind
dusk
the cul-de-sac
for daylight hours
dawn
the round-a-bout
for every 24-hour cycle
another day
adrift
What to do…with all this time
silence
Solitude?
Downtowns shuttered
I walk without destination
the familiar faces of neighbors
have faded into the folds of invisible fabric
and I smile my wooden smile
behind smelly cloth
at the ghost people
whose names I don’t know,
moving like vapor
through the grocery isles
to escape the summer humidity.
The phone
my only companion
pings endlessly
with political ads:
the body count
the vitriol
the dread of November
while I am left waiting
waiting
waiting.