Arguable Distance
A Poem

You’re not coming any closer, but you’ve still closed the gap, you laid flowers between us; heavy on the accent, you rearranged the decor
put up the old atlas: those routes haven’t changed. When the white of the sky is just the snow on the ground, you’ll come
see what I’ve done to the place, maybe adjust the bed, scuff the table for new marks, for gouges where the pen lay
ignored for long enough to write a song about it. The yellowed brick house that lurches just as well as me
comes hunting for the celebration of the moment; scowling when I took away this hope, because I was still
fixed on you, and overcoming this distance, the words we keep having to define in order to edge a little closer
to not leave everything in total disarray; but I missed it, then, I missed something on the way; I have to make my way back.
J.D. Harms 2020






