Issue 4 - David Filer

Sonnets Diminishing

1.

In the air now, straight lines of gray snow,

rain pushing down through just-freezing air.

Snow, the way I like it, on the verge

of warming back into rain.  I try

to remember what you said you'd be

doing that day, what it sounded like,

turning to wonder, and maybe that

was the place I stopped and looked across

the water, looked through the snow, or what

was left of it, and saw lights coming

down the river, just lights, red, green, white,

ghostly at this distance, and yet real,

as if memory might be enough,

with more winter weather coming on.

2.

Back then, I probably called it hopeful,

the way, suddenly, there were pale green

leaves on our maples, and a soft haze

penetrated the cooling sunshine.

It was on such a late Spring evening––

no, it was that very Spring evening,

I turned left off of Bybee and slowed at

the crosswalk, just past the old Moreland,

and after how many years, I thought of you,

how the vibrant light of the neon

around the theater's deco marquee

was like your blue eyes.  But then, farther down

Milwaukie, waiting behind the 19 Bus,

I could not be sure either had been true.

--David Filer

 

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