Slant: A Journal of Poetry: “Dumb Fires” (retitled “Small Fires”) and “Little Elegy for Silence Among the Living”

“Dumb Fires” (retitled “Small Fires”) and “Little Elegy for Silence Among the Living”, published in Slant A Journal of Poetry

https://slantpoetryjournal.wordpress.com/paula-colangelo/

Who would have found me if I’d died?

Street drugs kept secret.

Scars I hid with a sleight of hand.

My secrets outnumber the strangers I met in Rome.

Street drugs kept secret.

I searched for cigarettes and other dumb fires.

My secrets outnumber the strangers I met,

waking on cool tiles after the best nights.

I searched for cigarettes and other dumb fires.

Covert after-hours clubs opened on Avenue A.

Waking on cool tiles after the best nights.

One obsession counts as stalking.

Covert after-hours clubs opened on Avenue A

so the party wouldn’t end.

One obsession counts as stalking.

Scars remind me of places

where the party wouldn’t end.

Now I hide surgical scars with a sleight of hand.

They remind me of places

no one would have found me if I’d died.

Little Elegy for Silence Among the Living

On a slow night at the bistro,

Clair de Lune plays on piano.

Conversations pause and resume.

Couples work to interpret meaning.

My great uncle, comes to mind —

sculptor who formed death masks.

I think he made one of Einstein’s face.

It is said Einstein claimed: I have done my share.

It is time to go. I will do it elegantly.

What stillness cast in that room

as plaster kissed forehead, brows,

lips at peace with departing.