The Next People, by Ed Gold

Mythic Realm, by Linda Fantuzzo (USA) 2019. Click image to visit artist site.


The Next People

The last thing we did was paint the ceiling green.
We had put it off forever.
Then you walked out the door into the busy light,
and I climbed up the gleaming ladder
and closed the window.

Above the empty fireplace,
we left the painting of the rainforest
we bought in Costa Rica.
Neither of us could imagine
looking at it in another room.

We left the door open for the sun to paint
a door of dappled light on the shiny floor
for the next people who will fill
this hollow space,
hoping for a different ending.

Ed Gold

Ed Gold is a Charleston, SC poet who has published a chapbook, Owl, and over seventy poems in various journals, including the Cimarron Review, Kansas Quarterly, and Rat's Ass Review. One of his favourite gigs today is running the Skylark Contest for the Poetry Society of South Carolina. He discovered ekphrastic writing in this artist's studio, where he wrote this poem.

​