Christopher Buckley

Profligate

Time lost its shoes
—Neruda

No one expects you
                                 to turn up again
                                                            on that salt-bleached bench
lighting a cigarillo, gazing
                                          after another useless halo of smoke
outside the bodega.
                                 How many questions moved off even a little
with the hazy resolution of clouds?
                                                         Any bird can read the map
of the air, knows when to turn around.
                                                               Sure, weariness collected
with the dust in your cuffs,
                                             but what does it matter now where
you stopped for soup,
                                    for bread, or slipped out the side door,
leaving the check
                              beneath a plate?
                                                        Street sweeper, sidewalk inspector,
collector of bottles and cans—
                                                  someone still needs to make sense
of philosophy,
                        herd sheep, take in a stray cat—
                                                                           the past is a fine powder
on the road that ends at the sea . . .
                                                           Eventually, some viejo might
recognize you,
                          spot that hopeless rucksack on your shoulders, the one
you set off with half full,
                                          half a life ago, thinking there was something
out there in the grab bag of the blue.
                                                             Wind arrives, insists you knew
better, and despite a sure uncertainty
                                                           they'll hand you a glass of red
rough wine
                    so you can salute each misery side-stepped, so you can
realize how lucky
                              you are to be here with nothing
                                                                                 but this empty
starlight rising above the bay, the fog again hanging
                                                                                    just offshore
like the lost promise of another life. . . .

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Christopher Buckley's SPREZZATURA is published by Lynx House Press, 2025. His last book, One Sky to the Next, 2023, won the Longleaf Press Book Prize. His work was selected for Best American Poetry 2021 and he is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, two NEA grants, a Fulbright Award in Creative Writing and four Pushcart Prizes. He has edited over a dozen critical collections and anthologies, most recently NAMING THE LOST: THE FRESNO POETS—Interviews & Essays.