Robert Beveridge
Χαιρετε
It is always too long, this parting. Our days snatched
like apples from the jaws of a mastiff, all too rare,
and always with the danger of lost
or bloodied fingers. Between, the interminable
silence, the empty, dropped stomach of want.
I spend my time without you on monumental tasks:
Sisyphus would be proud, no doubt, of the efficiency
of alphabetized libraries and absorbed Greek texts.
Books, of course, cannot roll back
downhill; I am thankful that time does.
There is much here that awaits you. The place looks
different since you saw it last. The Riesling
and its companion glasses await the corkscrew,
your lips. Beside you, I find ways to forget
there is such a word as goodbye.