Noah Falck

You Had to Be There

A morning unmade by fog

with gulls the color

of tomorrow’s weather.

An extended family

lines up across a snow-dusted cemetery.

Their faces carved

from a wooden kind of hurt.

They are here to bury a loved one

in a pair of gas station sunglasses,

$2.99 off the rack.

The field now encrypted

with crows.

You think an ocean’s worth

of light is the end.

You think an unthinkable

amount of light.

Present Tense 

The trees go futureless

in late winter

in the abracadabra

of snowlight. 

The present tense music

of I’ll text you later

when I’m alone inside a poem

the sky is a public event

and the streets flower

with difficult children. 

It always feels like a long time has passed

because it has.