Marko Capoferri

Self-Portrait with Elegy (IV)

with a line from Larry Levis

The present can’t remember
what it is: the exact color
and feel of glass

the very instant before
it breaks, or the minute
surface tensions built up

under a lifetime of surrender.
Or, a sky so stalled you wait for it
to rust. A little distant fire

that never grows and therefore
never dies. The mechanical
bull precisely after the last

rider has been thrown
and the final stiff drink served
with a bell. The bell waving

on its chain as the sound
dissipates into an emptying room,
neon tubes gone cold, wet

rings that evaporate and stain
every surface for tomorrow’s
rags to gloss over.

I’ve insulated the past thick
with regret. What gets to be
called history, and by whom,

might be discovered
only when it bends away
from the victors

as it was written. Only then
can I seek to revise or discredit
the conclusion, which

is right now: the clocktower
ringing the hour across
the river, the river pulsing

over its bed of stones,
keeping time. But I know
that time cannot be kept, or killed,

and the present can’t remember
what it is: a beggar’s cup
rattling a single coin.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Marko Capoferri is a poet, musician and former conservation worker. He has lived and worked in eight US states, including Montana, where he has lived since 2015. He earned an MFA in poetry from the University of Montana in Missoula. His work has appeared in Porter House Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Anti-Heroin Chic, Opt West and elsewhere.