Afternoons
Quick passage into
memory and behind
only blank spaces,
blue stain on pink
litmus or merely
known so closely
something falls away
receding from touch,
caught in the air
your fingers move,
agile water-fly
padding the surface
of what is seen
even among these
defractions, bent
pencil or warps
of a flat eye,
the wide world circling.
Copyright Credit: Michael Anania, “Afternoons” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by Michael Anania. Used by permission of Asphodel Press/Acorn Alliance.
Source: Poetry (June 1975)