Two Poems by Gary Young

“Last night I fell asleep”

Last night I fell asleep, and in a dream, I wrote a poem. I worked every line into

place, and when I’d finished, I woke up, scribbled the poem down in the dark,

and went back to sleep. In the morning, I picked up the notepad beside my bed

expecting to find the poem, but there was only a single word printed there:

snow. The authentic self is inarticulate, and there is no end to the excitement

of failure.

Each moment blossoms, stutters, and takes its place in the past. Bees sip water

from the moss at the edge of a pond. Scarlet oaks tremble in a breeze. Night

falls. I held Gene’s hand while he was dying. He fell asleep, and when he woke,

his mouth tightened, and he started to cry. He didn’t cry because he was dying,

he cried because I was there, and would have to watch him die. Outside,

the sea was going up in flames.