BRIAN FOLEY
Sixteen Moments of Silence
for Dave Morris
I have never been a place
which overwhelms me.
Even if I can’t radiate in this country
tonight wears something bright
A back and forth
from bed to table
my insides rhyming streets
with no power to die
A town can pull down the corners of a mouth but there’s song
at the ankles it asks
for directions
carrying the people that lead me away from where I know to go
We can think every detail on earth
to be a spine
disturbed by coils
of moonlight
sufficient to overflow
hearts
missing the balance
of what heaven
Who you are is not a where
not the house
felled into the sea
by storm not
the waves of no control
anything can be brought out of water if you fall in love with your breath
by holding it
I haven’t known
what will happen for very long
but it is wonderful this life
even if it’s not mine
78 The Paris-American
for Dave Morris
I have never been a place
which overwhelms me.
Even if I can’t radiate in this country
tonight wears something bright
A back and forth
from bed to table
my insides rhyming streets
with no power to die
A town can pull down the corners of a mouth but there’s song
at the ankles it asks
for directions
carrying the people that lead me away from where I know to go
We can think every detail on earth
to be a spine
disturbed by coils
of moonlight
sufficient to overflow
hearts
missing the balance
of what heaven
Who you are is not a where
not the house
felled into the sea
by storm not
the waves of no control
anything can be brought out of water if you fall in love with your breath
by holding it
I haven’t known
what will happen for very long
but it is wonderful this life
even if it’s not mine
78 The Paris-American
Brian Foley's first collection of poems, The Constitution, is forthcoming from Black Ocean. He's authored several chapbooks including TOTEM, out now from Fact-Simile Editions. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, Fou, ILK, iO: a journal of New American Poetry, Sixth Finch, The Volta, and Aesthetix. With Julia Cohen he co-edits Saltgrass and with EB Goodale, he runs Brave Men Press. He lives well in Western Massachusetts.