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Thomas March
Matte O'Brien
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the poet
Essayist, performer and poet Thomas March is the author of Aftermath. His work has featured in The Account, The Adroit Journal, The Good Men Project, Evergreen Review, OUT, RHINO and Verse Daily. Thomas hosts and curates bi-monthly 'variety salon' Poetry/Cabaret – a performance series that unites and invites poets, comedians and cabaret performers to share responses to a common theme. A contributing editor to GRAND, he's called New York City home for more than 25 years, and teaches at both The Brearley School, and in Barnard College’s Pre-College Program.
the poems
Connected
Absence can’t be absent
until the waiting stops
and every holiday
or date that celebrates
something of ours can pass
without my noticing
when I get into bed
that I’ve been expecting
to hear from you, maybe
an accidental call—
maybe no accident.
Until then, we remain
at the opposite ends
of widening silence,
nothing between us but
an unseen wire, pulled taut—
a trip wire, a guard wire
held by a ghost, a string
vibrating soundlessly
between two Dixie cups.
Separate Now
Most of the stemware has shattered,
and the plates have chipped, of living
together, never replacing
anything we still had two of.
Whatever is broken or worn
I guess we kept for the having
of only one of us, one day—
so now that you’re leaving, you leave
whatever is replaceable.
Our suitcase is yours now, and mine
you can have, too—now that I have
your closet space, and all these drawers.
(I’m keeping one drawer just for you—
with bracelets from a Pride parade,
our hotel soaps and small shampoos,
a key to your old apartment,
the corks from two bottles of Veuve,
some ticket stubs, a metrocard,
your extra checkbook. All of it
remains, as if the heart were not
a reliquary of its own.)
But what will we do with the shoes?
We were sharing our shoes before
we settled our sides of the bed.
So who’s to say whose shoes are left
behind this door that has to stay
unlocked, with one of us per side?
Hello, Future
Crossing the Pont des Arts,
Paris, 2019
'Hello, future,' I say.
'Just say, "Hello, future."'
We don’t stop, but you wave
to the camera and sing,
'Hey, future!' in that way
you sing 'Merry Christmas!'
or 'Hey, you!' if it’s me
when you open the door.
I imagined that day
we would watch this, after
everything we could be
had already happened.
We’d look at each other
in a comfortable room
at the quieter end
of our well-traveled life
and reassure ourselves
by telling your fortune—
that everything to come
would be worth all the rest
of everything to come.
It wasn’t innocent,
asking you to mark this
point from which we’d measure
whatever time was left.
I knew it might be sad
for at least one of us
to watch someday—sometimes
I watch it on behalf
of the future we planned,
sometimes one we might have
escaped. What if I had
stopped you there to confess
my fear—that we’d never
be happier? We could
have parted on that bridge
and never said a thing
we never should have said.
But as long as we live
in this future you greet,
there might be so much more
to say—when we’re ready
no longer to be two
idiots on a bridge,
assuming it will hold.