a fragment of unexhausted time
—Anne Carson
Light on an apricot leaf,
shadows quake,
and I’m thinking of
eternity—my ridiculous attachment to it.
Overrunning to billions,
our attentions digitalized,
a future in which stars die—
endless,
opaque sky,
some may think of a different gauntlet run: buyable
beauty, chainsaw scents in
the glare
of duty-free.
For others, a false dream,
which dactyl-sings Achaeans to flicker-
spill the heartless plain of Skamandros,
like inebriated flies crowning
milk pails in the fullness of spring.
It’s the glint of
mica and umber granite, for
me, early autumn in Santa Fe, my gran in
the afternoon fetching mint from a glass-
and-can-strewn arroyo, where sewage
surface-leached.
Though his roots are in New Mexico, Christopher Watson spent the first years of his life in Mexico City. After graduating from St. John’s College, he studied classics at post-graduate level, then lived for nine years in Barcelona’s gothic quarter, writing and making organic olive oil to the south of that city. Both of his sons were born in Barcelona to his British wife. He completed an MA in Creative Writing at Middlesex University (UK) in 2007. Since moving back to Santa Fe, in 2013, he has dedicated himself to writing poetry, having published in the Malpais Review, Pasatiempo, Silver Needle Press and Cathexis Northwest. He also volunteers as a translator for Somos Un Pueblo Unido, as well as serving on the board of Santa Fe Pro Musica and the development committee of the Rio Grande Mindfulness Institute.
Appears In
Cagibi Issue 5
