Filling The Distance

C. C. Cotton gin

Filling The Distance

While you tape box after box, nodding yes for the t.v., no for the records, I watch the two students we hired move everything we owned: they slap shoulders and palms held high talking about last night's big game, who screwed who, and whether they have a chance against the undefeated team at this year's Conference. Is there no place where we can remain? What if. .. I don't know.

I wonder what to say. What could I say? I mention this, softly, as a joke. And while you try to smile, you are too eager to turn from the confining circle of good-bye. All things are for the best, they'll say when I return for work.

This minute, like a heavy perfume that grows and grows, lingers as an answer to some forgotten question, and like tossing pennies to a dry pond, we lost the will to wish, to urge to reply.

I want to write: with this verse, reason will follow, that each word makes it more real; but I know adding nothingness to a void is still nothing, yet perhaps these broken lines will give us a lasting place, something later to mention at some friend's party, to occupy our voices: to fill the distance.