A vain attempt at recursion.

by DS Maolalai

 

and there is a lighter on the table
and a saucer,
but no ashtray.
and she is drinking vodka
in a glass without ice
while he sits on the bed
with his legs crossed at the ankles
and his back against the wall.
it is winter here;
all week the rainsoaked pavements
have been white
with second-hand sunshine,
and he keeps looking at her
and she keeps looking out of the window,
then back at the page,
shaping phrases
and scratching things out
in the play,
her second,
which still
is not about them.

they both wrote like liars
with bad imaginations
and neither smoked enough
to justify an ashtray.
and he was piecing together a poem
which he thought was pretty good
because of the way the light was hitting her
soft as it came through the window,
as if it could make him feel
something,
as if everything
about her
didn't make him
feel something.

and while the play was eventually produced
the poem never was published,
and he wrote some other poems
about her, and her writing the play
and him writing a poem while she wrote the play
but she never bothered with a play
about his underpublished poems
and that was the day he best remembered her
when he tried his best to remember
the days
which had been best.