By Robert Lynn

on the first not quite warm day of March the park filled with the delusion of spring       

our friends napped by the half dozen against a tree           dogs gathered loose             

bikini tops from sunbathers made maenads by 53 degrees          we gave time away        

in handfuls to the ducks              pairs of men emerged from winter to wave lures        

at the water an excuse to love each other without looking       I read your        

cheekbones’ anger at how I got more time than you before the good earth was       

over     fed you grapes the closest I could get to an apology for something I didn’t         

choose      someone sitting at our tree and very high asked Is this the Golden        

Hour?    and the light answered with yellow silence the way it does all questions        

so obvious       later walking you home I told a story how my parents fell in love       

first drunk then again sober only after I existed              I didn’t think you were         

listening until the moment you stopped mid path mid sentence a way of making       

me turn around        you told me There isn’t time to do anything twice        How        

come?     you let the light give its yellow reply      I don’t want the world to end        

you said     when it does I will remember it this way     the sun picking mulch from        

your backlit hair      your fresh burnt shoulders making the gesture for All this?        

and I give up at the same time       this last first day before the good earth was done        

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Robert Lynn is a poet from Fauquier County, Virginia. He is currently an MFA student in poetry at New York University. His work has been featured or is forthcoming in American Literary Review, Antioch Review, Blackbird, Michigan Quarterly Review and other journals. He Lives in Brooklyn.