by Fred Muratori
STAY-AT-HOME GODS
Infinity is finite to the gods.
They skip among stars
like children at recess,
play frisbee with comets
while we crawl the difficult inches
toward our own demise.
It’s no accident we say the word
lifespan with the accent on life,
the span being comically, if not
cruelly, short. Once, as you and I
sat reading in our Sunday
separate-but-together hour,
I imagined we were divinities
in serene repose, omnipotent
gods of the couch, nothing past
our care or comprehension.
I watched your eager eyes
devouring a page when suddenly
you looked up and asked
How much do you love me?
No human words could answer
so I stood and stretched my scrawny
arms as far apart as they would go.
How relieved I was when your smile
told me that was infinity enough.
*
RETROSPECTIVE
For my last birthday I invited all my friends
to gather in the backyard. (It is a small yard.)
I asked them to stand quietly while I read
a few poems. Several looked longingly at
the side table I’d arranged with shrimp
and prosciutto and bean dip and tiramisu
but mostly their eyes were focused on me
as I read smooth poems and fractured poems,
lyrics and monologues, published works
and handwritten drafts, a few funny ones
scattered among the great many sad ones.
It was a bright spring day, so the sad ones
might not have sounded sad enough.
I noticed one friend wince, another stare
at her cellphone. Because I didn’t want
to telegraph what to feel, I read each poem
in the same robotic monotone. I’d say
Just one more and then read five.
The sun was lower than when I’d begun
and some listeners shifted from foot
to foot, masking yawns, swallowing sighs.
In the deepening gloom it grew difficult
to tell one face from another. Finally,
when I promised Just one more I kept my word
though it was my longest poem, besotted
with classical references. No one realized
I’d finished, but after a silent minute
somebody clapped. The group remained
standing, uncertain of what I meant to do next.
Then my oldest friend stepped forward,
cleared his throat and said Thanks for sharing.
And with that they faded into the tall hedge,
my muse the last to leave, her pockets
swollen with catered shrimp.
Fred Muratori has published three collections of poetry, the latest being A Civilization from Dos Madres Press. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, Poetry Northwest, Redivider, The Boston Review, Barrow Street and others. His reviews of current poetry have lately appeared in Manhattan Review, American Book Review, and Library Journal. He lives and works in Ithaca, NY.
