Untitled (after busker)

[wasellajam]

apologies to the poet - fell in love with that line and couldn't help myself
I'd prefer you to say the exact line you're using or use quotes or italics for it.


Untitled
after busker

Love is the only foolish
adventuring we do, a story
most convincing in the absence
of the truth.
This sounds great but I'm unconvinced by "absence", there's probably a shred of truth in there to even remember it.


Part a pair of parrots, and "and" stands out as a weak break and padding.
they’ll pluck themselves to death.
The clock starts ticking once the plumage sheds
its final breath. Again these two lines sound great but they stop me because the clock starts with the separation, no?


I looked for you in London, where the air
is thick with memory—you weren’t there,
but your sister was. The cockles
made me sick.
I've grown attached to these lines, emotionally charged but it may be my own association with my sister and London and a bit of foolishness. The use of cockles is interesting, "air is thick with memory" sounds cliched but does its job.


Time accrues. It wraps around
the throat and closes slow, until
one morning, you just don’t wake up.
And you’re the last to know.
Meh to these last lines, the poem might be stronger without the summation, you've already got food poisoning.

Thanks for posting this, always fun to be inspired by someone else's work to the point of writing your own.