Looking Forward Poem by Fred Rik Kesner

Looking Forward




In the upper case,
a volume the colour of
late‑harvest light,
its spine breathing
salt and iron.



I keep it ajar
—not for dust,
but so mapped-out water
can run beside
my own small channel,
each bend marked
in a hand I almost know.



Through the plaster,
a swell of brass‑warm air
—someone's breath
caught in a long note,
turning the parlour
to water.



I do not rise,
only let the sound
find its own shelf
between maps,
where it can lean
against a memory
I have yet to
admit is mine.



Between first assent
and last,
a pressed leaf charts
streets I will've walked;
in hollow nooks
where a page was long gone,
I've set a three‑part hinge:
motion, tether,
threshold.



It waits there,
not as ornament,
but as one more
voice in the palimpsest
—leaning into a shut
window is still
leave unlatched.











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