Time Off

By William Goulet

Remember  the year you sat out

the orbit around the sun? The year you hovered in space

and all you wanted was to watch the planet slowly rotate,

cocked to one side with that funny little wobble,

the monotonous moon in tow?

Just what you needed. Remember?

But then it dwindled as it receded,

along with your complacency, eventually

a speck of light pilfered by solar glare.

You could guess where it was but you couldn’t sense it.

You were no longer embedded.

Remember how your anxiety ceased,

which left nothing but squinting regret?

How your time off the temporal root proved an irony

too great to bear? So when it finally did reemerge

you were that much worse off than when you

bailed to begin with. Then remember how the world

came barreling back, suddenly enormous

and about to slam into you? Of course you do.

That year’s all you ever think about anymore really,

sometimes face down in your garden

while clinging to the earth.

________________________________

William Goulet resides in Cornwall, Connecticut. His work has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and Apricity. His play "Filler" was produced at Paradise Factory, 64 East 4th Street, NYC.