Better Half
F. Daniel Rzicznek
Flying to the clocktower one at a time the sparrows
Were a much needed distraction sleep left me with nothing
To report nonexistent rungs on an extending ladder
Then I was seeing things as things and not through them
The deep unlit lanterns of the glass hills I thought it had
Become another way but noon was midnight and vice
Versa eternally desire over memory equaled nostalgia
And the utmost of perception turned out to be pain
A cemetery embraced by fields of cement someone I had
Known from her life only no thoughts or fantasies or facts
No assumptions smoke cleared our heads most evenings
As the latest season hurried down unconcerned with us
Our worry for the split second sky it built get out she insisted
Open a window even then the dry fields stretched thinly on
F. Daniel Rzicznek’s most recent book of poetry is “Settlers” (Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press, 2019). He is coeditor of “The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice” (Rose Metal Press 2010). He teaches writing at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.