Absent Presence, by Jo Taylor

​Absent Presence

after Akira Kusaka’s artwork of the same name

Somewhere in the world people will eat
a single grape with each of the twelve
strokes of the clock. Elsewhere families
cut cake to find the good-luck coin or
they smash pomegranates, hoping
the seeds scatter far and wide
to bring about luck, prosperity, good
health and good times. But here,
on the couch, on the eve of a new year,
we press into each other
like a geological wall and whisper
of our history together. Of our mesas
and craters, our buttes and our spires.
Of color bands, entrenched with
the artifacts of our lives. Of the music
we made with the wind in the grasslands,
Time, feverishly conducting the finale. 

Jo Taylor

Jo Taylor is a retired, 35-year English teacher from Georgia who now enjoys being on the other side of the desk in the role of the poetry student. Jo also loves houring at the baseball field with her two grands and perusing a cookbook now and then. She has been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, and you can find her at jotaylorwrites.com