old & remembering

it seems to me
there was a promise
broken in dividing
these years

my mythology
searches out
its failures

the cool breath
of central air
plays on my hands

in the distance
I imagine
being saved


This is my all time favorite Alison Gaughan poem. It comes in response to a poem of her's published in Light From New Steel. In that poem the narrator is lying in a bath, feeling the air from the vent and she is afraid to open her eyes because she might be only 'old and remembering.' The first stanza reviews the actual complaint: she made me a promise and then broke it. The second stanza codifies it as my own failure. The third stanza recalls her own fear. The fourth stanza breaks from her and sees some hope in the future. Also this piece is similar in structure to the Who song, I Can't Explain, which I have always admired for getting so much done in so few phonemes.