Now & Then
I’m in love with the past.
My past. Up to and including
this morning. This morning was lovely,
I remember it like it was
yesterday. I was sitting right here
in this chair, sipping my coffee
and remembering a moment not unlike
this moment. Only lovelier. A moment
from the past. Which I love more than
now. I don’t love now. The Buddhists
can have now. Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle
can have now. Give me then. Give me
Mnemosyne, that girl who turned up
in my middle school in the middle
of the semester with a beautiful name
no one could spell. She sat in the desk
behind me in geography class
and spun the terrestrial globe around
and around, then stopped the world turning
and told me she was from here –
stabbing the Peloponnesus
with a long, wormy, inky, ringed index finger.
Paul Hostovsky's latest book of poems is Mostly (FutureCycle Press, 2021). His poems have won a Pushcart Prize, two Best of the Net Awards, and have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac. paulhostovsky.com
See more of Paul's work in 10.4 and 1.1