The Finality of a Poem
BY MICHAEL ANANIA
All day, that
is forever,
they fall, leaves,
pine needles,
as blindly as
hours into hours
colliding,
and the chill
rain—what else
do you expect
of October?—
spilling from one
roof to another,
like words from
lips to lips, your
long incertain
say in all of this
unsure of where
the camera is
and how the light
is placed and what
it is that’s ending.
Michael Anania, “The Finality of a Poem” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1994 by Michael Anania. Used by permission of Asphodel Press/Acorn Alliance.
Source: Selected Poems (1994)