Stephen Furlong

For as Long as I Could Remember

—for Bradley Harrison Smith

Today began
      with feet touching down
on the ground yesterday’s clothes
                strewn across the floor
books   on my nightstand        waiting to be read
I see Merwin’s The Carrier of Ladders
            such exposure  holding
a book or a person in the center
of their spine whether by dance or love—
making it up as we go and keeping what works        

fear keeps me tangled              in the bedsheets unable
to leave            comfort holds me        still      a picture         
my memory reveals a dinner table     we’re sitting
listening to each other             sharing
our human experience             I used to believe
the one true teacher was grief                        
revealing itself as a butterfly
such beauty     from chaos     
for as long as I could remember         your light has shined through
the corners of the home I’m building—

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Stephen Furlong is a poet living outside Kansas City, Missouri. He currently is an adjunct instructor at Metropolitan Community College-Longview. His poems have appeared in Bone & Ink, Louisiana Literature and Pine Hills Review, among others. Additionally, he currently serves as a staff reviewer for the journal Five:2:One and works specifically for the subset LitStyle. He can be found on Twitter @StephenJFurlong.