Necessity says I must be careful
as I stand in the tangle of weeds
to place my feet on solid ground
and not on a broken window pane

though I hold up the empty frame,
careful to let the spiders fall,
and cautious not to cut my hands
as I try to see what I overlooked.

This collapsing barn on the Ninth Concession
still has swallows in its hay-spewed loft
and the frame’s a gateway,
to escape this moment,
a pathway to a different place
with fields of goldenrod and cricket calls –

where I step out of the life I’m in
and do it better and listen differently,
and reach out to face my failures
and accept the world as it accepts me,

where you and I can finally meet,
as a flight of forktails circles our heads

and time makes no necessity of time,
as we arrive, greet, and embrace each other
exactly where we could have been.


Bio:

Bruce Meyer is the author of 64 books of poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and non-fiction. His most recent collection of poems is McLuhan’s Canary (Guernica Editions, 2019), and his next book of poems is currently the project for the University of Windsor Publishing Practicum and will be published by Black Moss Press in 2021. He lives in Barrie, Ontario, with his wife and daughter.