Joseph Hardy
Staying Up Late
Who would have thought an old man’s life
could leave so many unread pages
be a mystery in the last chapters
with too many possible suspects
blind corners, wild gambits
and unexpected character development.
I’ve come to love the people in mine—
their peculiar hopes and dreams
still taking shape.
I don’t want the book to end.
And I’d like to know, really,
what kind of mind
could write something
that could stop
with so many loose ends hanging,
each a jewel?
We Sell Those Ugly Houses
the billboards say they’ll buy
the ones we once lived in
among garbage bags of unwashed clothes
and dust-bunnies, wispy clouds
becoming soft shadows
beneath our beds, our unnamed dreams
left in tired wallows.
We walked around the piles
dropping what was in our hands
half an eaten sandwich,
the unread mail, and closed the doors
when piles combined
to suffocate a room.
