The Ancient Modern
Etc., Missing You / Joshua Alan Sturgill
Years later, still in Ohio at the café,
hand like a hummingbird moth
hovering over the paper, I’m writing
a letter filled with humorous news,
observations of fellow café patrons,
poetic descriptions of us now — now
that I know your bed, now that you
know mine. I finish again that last
sentence: until, etc., today, etc.,
missing you. Nothing out of place
in the café; its red seats, its blue sky.
I address the envelope, placing it
carefully in a book — a novel I am
always putting down to write to you
and picking up to hide your letter in.
My thousands of paragraphs
follow you like flocks of shadows,
green shadows of Ohio afternoons
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