GAS Featured Poet: Gregory Luce

 Gregory Luce, author of Signs of Small Grace, Drinking Weather, Memory and Desire, Tile, and Riffs & Improvisations, has published widely in print and online. He is the 2014 Larry Neal Award winner for adult poetry, given by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. In addition to poetry, he writes a monthly column on the arts for Scene4 magazine. He is retired from National Geographic, works as a volunteer writing tutor/mentor for 826DC, and lives in Arlington, VA.

Warm Canto

for Emily

 

She reminded me of you,

sitting there in front of

the coffeeshop—a bit taller,

maybe a bit older—still,

composed, a small spark

in the deep blue eyes,

gazing straight ahead

at a point somewhere between

my left shoulder and one hundred

miles away.

 

I hadn’t thought of you

for months but your face appeared

now, looking down, half-smiling

and slightly sideways, your eyes shy

with just a glint of élan. Suddenly

the street noise diminished.

Dolphy’s clarinet notes floated

gently above Waldron’s light-

stepped fingerings in the air

behind my head.

 

You slipped away abruptly,

emailing goodbye. I had

no hold on you, neither

father nor lover, but you left

a little fissure in my chest

which throbs occasionally

when I see or hear something

that reminds me of you like

now as I tried not to stare,

still hearing Waldron now

in step with Ron Carter’s

fingers plucking their way

down the cello’s neck.

 

Always a War

(after Ilya Kaminsky)

There’s always a war

but it’s always somewhere else

where I don’t know anyone

anyway plus look how much

bread costs now and chicken

and milk, not to mention

the price of silence.