2 December 2002 | Vol. 2, No. 4
The Future We Can Name
Nothing is motionless, not the painted portrait
blinking while you're away
whose acids are discoloring buttons, whose frame
is oxidizing while moistening its eyes,
or the uneasy sky pieced together from brushstrokes.
We stand on the deck with breadcrumbs,
seagulls appear in the air before us. This story
will spread like salamanders
born from the mating of fire and dead logs.
Each day we could have died we woke up
grateful after so many accidents,
tensions of things trying not to be their progenitors,
not determined by the heartworms of destiny.
The future we can name is the one hoped for,
duplicating yesterday's sex. The real one
is unpredictable as when the final original flake
of The Last Supper will loosen and fall,
the restorations and postcards taking over,
every day having its teeth hidden by its grin.
About the author:
Allan Peterson's most recent book, All the Lavish in Common, won the 2005 Juniper Prize and was published in April. He is also the author of Anonymous Or and four chapbooks. The most recent, Any Given Moment, is available as a free download from Right Hand Pointing. His poem "Going Octopus" recently won the GSU Review competition, judged by Stephen Corey, and his poem "Antipyretic" won the Muriel Craft Bailey award from the Comstock Review, judged by Thomas Lux.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Allan Peterson at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 2, No. 4, where "The Future We Can Name" ran on December 2, 2002. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
