by Lea Galanter

Only a few minutes ago, 
we were talking through the closet wall
like prisoners at a poet convention
or lovers caught in the parking lot
having one last dance under the indigo sky.

And now, as I walk by hanging baskets of peonies,
I wonder how I will remember you.
Only the softness of heartbeats 
can get me through the long nights
and this feeling of being left behind.

Where will these thoughts of you take me?
To the ghosts who have stolen our feathers,
the blackbirds of dawn unveiling
limitless threads of time,
or the self-satisfied glaciers of our youth
now dying under the strain?

 

Lea Galanter is a Seattle-area editor and writer with a background in history and theater. After writing plays for many years, she stumbled into the world of poetry and has never looked back. Her poetry has been published by Really System, Panoply, LitFuse, and in various anthologies. She now ventures regularly into the spaces between words seeking the secret messages.