“Satiety,” and Other Poems by Brian Rihlmann

SATIETY
there used to be  
a much longer delay  
between hope  
and disappointment     

now, I pluck the fruit  
and it withers  
in my hand    

I know it’s bitter  
before my tongue does 
   
soon I’ll leave the fruit  
and nourish myself   
on emptiness    

I’ll chew the blue of the sky  
I’ll taste the black of the night  
and be filled   

**

REBORN  
 
and when the pain finally goes 
as inexplicably as it came 
we grab its arm 
to drag it back  
through the door 
like a spurned lover 
saying  “please stay... 
I didn’t mean it” 
 
we believe if we let it go 
then it has no more meaning 
than a passing cloud 
a brief summer storm 
a dead leaf 
blowing down the street 
in the wake of a truck  
 
it must mean something 
more than that 
we think— 
 
we think so 
and thus it is reborn 
to scream at us 
through all our days 
and nights   

**

QUIT WEARING OTHER PEOPLE’S GLASSES! 
 
she read a poem I’d written  
and asked “How?” 
at one time  
I might’ve faked an answer 
but now 
I can only say 
that after staring 
for some 40 odd years 
through the peculiarities  
of this lens 
its bulges and divots 
my eyes have finally adjusted  
to how the light is bent 
yet for so long 
I thought I’d been given 
the wrong prescription 

***