wait let me just look at you by Jack C. Buck

                       ​Jo Naylor CC



wait let me just look at you

outside the bedroom window white expanse of cold 
a tree then more fields of snow 
further you eventually reach a road 
that first winter together I didn’t know what cold was 
my whole body was full of love that warmed me 
from any outside winter trying to get in

in the corner is an old lamp giving perfect light 
sometime later in the middle of night 
one of us will get up to turn it off 
we are getting slow tired now 
before we close our eyes let me look at you a little while longer 
you look so beautiful as you did yesterday and will tomorrow​



​

end protest

If I knew that was going to be the last time, in protest I would’ve faked a protest by laying down
in the middle of the street to stage my demands of there’s no way this can’t be the last time I’ll
ever be here with you, because if that’s the case that’s really damn sad. 

I would’ve sat there all night under the streetlights and painted a shadow memory of us to stay
there forever, to never fade away, long after all the years and rain could wash it away. 

If I knew that time was going to be the last time, I would’ve thought about it possibly being the
last time. 

And here I am and there you are with all this physical distance stretched between two points
where I sit now and where you are. 

And time is ticking. We are getting older. Our kids, just look at our kids. They have kids now. 

And the old memories are past the starting to fade phase. 

On an early morning drive with the morning fog stretched over that farm field just west of where
​all of this first started.

​



Jack C. Buck lives in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of Deer Michigan, Gathering View, will you let it send you out.