William Allegrezza

Twenty 7

i signal your absence with
beam red words circling the
leaves that hang near your head
and move through leaning forward
and whispering directions.
to the sea border you keep,
while i, drowning, explain to
water how the afternoon lingers.
all around me, the bats dart
as stars, the blue netting
covers my eyes, and the waves
surge along a line and then
pull back again. through it,
i talk to hear what someone thinks.
​​

---

Twenty 15

                                          
i felt for you in me
for stillness and found
a voice speaking
numbers and words
past the long expanse
offering no
requite from confusion,
just remote forms
of our dance in
others’ feet and knew
we must work,
worlds apart,
gradually to learn
our own constellations.

---

Twenty 18

the port bell sounds and resounds
just beyond where we would
stop, but we say, it’s morning,
the rain is coming slowly, and
we are, at last, vagrants searching
the sidewalks of the city for
stillness, though we have no plans
to take the usual soundings when
the passage narrows. across
the expanse, we are speaking to
old anchors thrown overboard,
to boats heading to no arrival,
but with no moors our answers
float on water randomly turning.


 


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William Allegrezza edits the e-zine Moria. He has published five books, In the Weaver’s Valley, Ladders in July, Fragile Replacements, Collective Instant, and Covering Over; two anthologies, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century and La Alteración del Silencio: Poesía Norteamericana Reciente; nine chapbooks, including Sonoluminescence (co-written with Simone Muench) and Filament Sense (Ypolita Press); and many poetry reviews, articles, and poems. He has books forthcoming with Salt, the University of New Orleans Press, and Furniture Press. In addition, he occasionally posts his thoughts at http://allegrezza.blogspot.com.