Jay Brecker
dear me
PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2025: VOL. 40.
a fine inlay of her fingers
amid mine palms pressed
together heartline
to heartline lifeline
to lifeline the bougainvillea
pressed to the window
by that point the sun had arrived
& departed left behind the cloud
the rain was nothing more than dew
purposeless in the human sense of wanting
let’s assume some trees looked on
going nowhere about their business
never being promoted
it’s how they live how they live
note especially the cornered
greenery or the hats
& jackets hooked on the rack
pressed to the wall as are two
prints pressed in their frames
—matted gray—each expose ...
it’s what we do become lost
in speculation the green of ...
the blue of ... the depth of ...
how much time is ...
even in the preparation of a meal
or showering or failing to look
& there are things to smell other than roses
it’s how the living somehow live
the insides of the body
or something not our bodies
but rather books pressed
along the shelves like flesh
barely room for breath
in the space mites shelter
dispersed in a colloid of fog
a sweep a will a wisp
a thought passes unseen
its shadow—if there was one—
at the very least in words
shoulder elbow wrist
pressed against the sofa
how we live is that we live
tiny beings we breathe in
when turning pages it’s not
indifference when pressed
—through a trilogy of touch—
into the evening as attention
to the night makes us sleepy
you’d think we’d wake wishing
to just forget the moon could
be forgiving & the stars
be less bereft but there is no
journal of sorts or otherwise
—at least not one I know of—
where the hours gone are tallied
so how we live is how we live
Jay Brecker walks and writes in southern California. His poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Rattle Poets Respond, Birdcoat Quarterly, The Shore, Permafrost, Lily Poetry Review, Ocean State Review, RHINO Poetry, and elsewhere. His manuscript, blue collar eclogue, was awarded the 2024 Marsh Hawk Press Rochelle Ratner Prize.