Chris Forhan

Late Resolution

 

The future wished me well, then turned the pistol

toward me. I wouldn't want to be a rabbit anymore,

a panic of plans exposed in the open meadow like that.

 

I wouldn't want to be the boy I was, dismayed

by a girl who wouldn't deign to invade his privacy.

Where are the snows of tomorrow, I sang.

 

And where is that song now, that thumb smudge

of feeling I couldn't wipe from my glasses?

It's over, that flimsy overlap of oaths

 

and gusts of attitude that blew me here,

where the notion of consummation remains,

though only as warning. I won't be the past's:

 

I've shooed that goose. Nor the future's: whether

I'm handsome at the gallows or not—no matter.

What matters is this squall that's kicked up

 

and ripped the dogwood blossoms down,

a scattering of white velvet gloves in the grass,

more words for which I am suddenly at a loss.