Jefferson

by Justin Lowe

I have been doing a lot of nothing, Ben.
I don’t mean thinking,
the unconquerable maze of poets,
I mean consigning myself to a gentle oblivion.
not despairing exactly, not some dark void
that sucks all the colour from a kiss.

what I guess I mean is that I have stopped having opinions,
that I will hold forth only with a question,
not a statement, and a polite one at that,
and certainly not an answer, it is why, Ben,
I have stopped writing these late summer months
while the ears bend heavy,

why my friends have stopped calling
and why I have stopped calling,
because suddenly I seem to be floating
like a dust mote in the eye.
this man of stolid routine,
of predictable patterns of thought.

suddenly I seem to exist at no fixed point,
the world abandoned to its fixed points and its bickering.

this is when you know you have woken to a war.