James Owens: “Against Disappearance”
AGAINST DISAPPEARANCE
After the well loved visitors have gone—
the grown children who meant talk and laughter,
gifts, cake, and embraces as they were leaving—
an early-spring snow begins, late afternoon.
The rooms have grown larger, and the husband and wife
touch whenever they are close. She goes for a walk.
He tries to write at an upstairs window,
but he is tired of finding the right words.
Small flakes thread erratically under the grey sky.
Within minutes, the yard is white again,
though the snow will not last, at this season.
A quiet formality seems the right attitude.
He makes tea with honey and lemon and watches
the neighbourhood darken as evening approaches.
He thinks his wife must have turned toward home,
and she will smile in the dark, shaking cold
from her hair, not unhappy. For now, he wants the snow
to fall without any profound meaning, and it does.
James Owens‘ newest book is Family Portrait with Scythe (Bottom Dog Press, 2020). His poems and translations appear widely in literary journals, including recent or upcoming publications in Channel, Arc, Dalhousie Review, Queen’s Quarterly, and Atlanta Review. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in a small town in northern Ontario.