7.05 / May 2012

The Clepsydra

Keith Dunlap

A woman crying full of pleasure through the wall
Hands plastered on the plasterboard
I know that sound
She herself often leads me to the kitchen and then
Props me up, groaning, while I kiss her neck.
The whisperings of girls, smiles, sweet deceptions
Are not what they used to be,
Those thieves of wretched make-believe.

Our souls, being mainly air, cannot hold us together,
So breath and air together embrace the entire universe,
At least this one,
Each of us in our inner tube turning slowly
In a circle as we drift downstream on time.
How strangely my muddled senses swim!
As if some insomniac next door had left the TV on,
Filling the empty with its raucous emptiness,
A replay of something pre-recorded:

A woman crying through the wall.

Keith Dunlap is a former co-editor of The Columbia Review and editor of Cutbank, having received his M.F.A. from the University of Montana. His poems have recently been accepted for publication in Borderlands, The Carolina Quarterly, The Concho River Review, Crate, Emprise, Ninth Letter, pacificReview, Slipstream, and Souâ€™wester, among other places. He lives in Portland, Maine with his wife, Jenny Siler, the novelist, and his daughter, Vivica.

7.05 / May 2012