Often Poem by Robert Leary

as if they were statues in a dream,
people left over from some other party;
not tonight's, some other one - you met them,
yes, partially you met and had meant to meet again.

He'd just published in POETRY and that we nibbled on
as if the idea had been a good once; frozen,
unfrozen for the evening and somehow lost its flavor.

You try again; how many countless times you try
to pick up where you left off -
a forgotten name of a forgotten dog you'd once adored
as a child of your own dreams of being a child
with a dog you once loved.


Wormwood Review
Issue. twenty-five
1967