a poem by amorak huey
Lament with Waning Crescent
I was going to read you a poem but we ran out of time.
I was going to read you a poem but I forgot my reading glasses.
I was going to read you a poem but my body had other ideas
and like I said we had only so much time.
I was going to read you a poem but kissing is better
and besides I would simply have read you a poem about kissing,
two bodies on a bed making their own poems.
I was going to read you a poem but you’re already on your way,
already too far to hear the poem. The patterns
of distance are well established between us. Is an unread poem
a kind of broken promise? Our bodies grow accustomed
even to the absence of rhythm, the rhythm
of absence, silence where a poem might have been.
This is the lesson of the moon: bright seam in the sky of a love poem.
Amorak Huey is author of five books of poems including Mouth, out from Cornerstone Press in 2026. Co-founder with Han VanderHart of River River Books, Huey teaches at Bowling Green State University. He is co-author with W. Todd Kaneko of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024).