"Coleridge's window"

Martin Corless-Smith

   

The frost performs its secret ministry

unhinged by any part. I can’t

recall a single day as any thing

beyond a spectacle of loss. One

has the instant almost held of course

and one has the bliss of ignorant

forgetfulness—but who is that

and what of any of it now—it is

come to facts and facts do not exist

in company to selves—they are a

sheen of details on the lens of one

blank window bordering the inside with the out…

  

having early left one never can

relive the prior instant or relieve

the action of its consequence.

Man, being timely, sticks in time

no counterpart alternative survives

just the memory, receding with each play

of counterfactual chances—ghosts

that never walked the house

  

                                       haunt everyday.


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Author Bio: Martin Corless-Smith was born and raised in Worcestershire, England. Two of his books were published in 2015: Bitter Green, from Fence Books, and This Fatal Looking Glass, from SplitLevel Texts. He teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Boise State University.