An older woman with dyed hair casts aside newspaper
pages like pointless ballots while I post my status online.
The shimmering fake fire in the café reminds me that in a breath
we’ll swap spots, I’ll flip forgotten pages while a younger woman
with fresher hair will perch here, plunge forward, aim her life toward mine.
William James wrote that the self is a noun, like this or here.
My grandmother lasted nearly 95 years; now I hear her absence arrive
like waves against a blue bluff: I return your love something-fold.
James said the self is a bodily process that mostly takes place
in your head (I’m astonished at what persists—love,
when the thinking and knowing are gone,
still the loving self) and a moment may be suffused
by a uniform feeling of warmth (Your love, I return it
something-fold) and will only be knowable afterwards.
"Something-Fold Sonnet" originally appeared in Elevated Threat Level (Green Lantern Press, 2018) and is republished here with kind permission of the author.
The ALL Review is pleased to present our How to Live series, poems chosen to help readers navigate these difficult and rapidly changing times.
