Simon Montgomery

Nice to See You

We sat in the yard
and wondered what next

and wouldn’t we have
liked to know what went
wrong without the burden 

of how the truth might stay.
Stay present we
reminded ourselves, made
a game of here and now, watched 

the grass go from mowed to in need
of. It was easy to name the growth
a figment, hard to accept that despite 

our fixed stillness, the world went on
and away. And we believed it. We sat
in the yard and wondered what next, 

believed that if we were to just stay
present, the grass we never had
a reason to mow would

adjust, become our new dumb truth,
shape a past worth returning to.

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Simon Montgomery is an aspiring poet based in Atlanta, Georgia. His work made the top twenty percent of submissions for the Francine Ringold Awards at the Nimrod International Journal in 2021. He is currently studying creative writing at Georgia State University.