The Tall Green Vase
Stephen Jackson
A curious knocking at the door all day
while I have kept quietly to book and tea,
in blind-slanted sun other books wait on shelves,
perhaps for someone else to come and read them.
I for no clear reason stop reading this one,
place it on the end stand, take a look around —
a poster on the wall for Wilder’s “Our Town”,
the teacup made in China, where it came from,
an empty space where a tall green vase once stood
beside the window, while outside the window
blossom petals scatter, glimmer on the air,
present as I am — at the moment, not here.
Stephen Jackson lives in the Pacific Northwest. He is the originator of Seattle small press So Many Birds publishing (SMBp), which produced Harness, an offbeat literary magazine with its eye on “what’s left of literature.” Poems appear in The American Journal of Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, and S/WORD. @fortyoddcrows