Hiding Places
Diana Senechal
Everyone who knows you knows
your downhill slope: your poetry reading
in the wind, pages flying, you not knowing
your own poems, so after a few vain dashes
after the leaves, you cut it short, sorrying
sheepishly like so many other times, yet
we told you it was great, because it really
was: those three minutes or so when you
seized a form and vice versa, the bright
brief grip of eyes, words, and wind.
We believe in those three minutes, even now
that they have pared themselves down
to two and a half—even there we glean
a holy poverty in what must be the worst
torque of despair: watching yourself flee from
your own soul, unable to chase yourself
through that elusive tube. “We,” I say,
but the crowds have dwindled as well,
down to the few wild-haired ones you long
ago wrote off as old hat. So you leave
us behind and slink into cooler throngs,
who have no clue how this will all fly
apart and where no one expects you
to be gifted or even good. Smoky blue air,
comfort of nobodyness. I saw you there
one evening—finding solace there too—
and left you alone, didn’t even tap my feet
in time with yours, waited until you had gone
and come from the bar before buying
my next beer, because, illusion or not,
it is the sense of something in common
that swells up in me like a psalm, so that I
too have leaves slipping from me, I too
chase them on a lark, then call it off,
stop still, and let the praise hail down
on me, pelting my pate. It’s a good feeling,
and if it wounds, I slink away to my den.
Praised, you sang, praised be the hiding places.
Image: Imprint Piano, by Kelsey Hochstatter.
Take Away the Takeaway 
michael9murray
/ May 9, 2022Loved this.
Diana Senechal
/ May 9, 2022Thank you.