Gymnopédie no. 1, 1888

Clayton Longstaff

That life is but the dream
half remembered,
half made up,

never entirely certain to whom
(or is it to who?)
the question of belonging belongs.

That a glint of newly showered light
threaded gold
like bracelets, Buccellati,

slipping over row after fragrant row
of sandalwood
charms a slowing of pace

reminds me just how much I’ll miss this world,
its spirited bent
for ornament,

the tiny flakes of it that wear your skin,
when all of this
is really gone.

In the song, the painfullest of three,
imagination’s
arcing edifice

over the real collapses to the parted
pearled wings
of two lovers

skeletal in the portly night,
stirring memory
with a wish

that life could be the dream we wake from—
its edges
made soft as some feather

fallen off a bird that maybe once flew by here.

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Clayton Longstaff's work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in publications including The Dalhousie Review, Geist, Canadian Literature, and elsewhere. He lives on the unceded territory of the Lekwungen & W̱SÁNEĆ nations.

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