John Gallaher

Like People on a Train

Order needs a little chaos. Like, “I need to feel connected to people,”
and “Please get the fuck away from me.” And for our trouble,
we get movie death vs real death, but not every day,
which gives us some grace for pondering dynamism
in a static system, and saying things like “I am sympathetic
to mystery.” Because whatever this is, it’s not all
that’s going on, right? The person sitting next to you
on the train just wants to finish this crossword
so asking them is out. “I had this dream last night,”
which is how no one wants to have someone start
a conversation with them. And in this dream, every night
you die, and a new creature is formed with your memories
and is certain it’s you. And each day, the duplication
isn’t perfect, like how they mess up sometimes with angels.

Or maybe it’s DNA. The point is they mess up, little by little.
Tomorrow, someone else will wake up as you, who
lasted a day. So of course, I woke up and stared at the ceiling
awhile. It has a slant to the right. I’m sure of it.
I’m certain it wasn’t there yesterday, though of course
I’m sure it was. Like a travelling art exhibit. Like a warning
from the future one throws away. Like the sudden coherence
of street noise. The pleasant sky into horizon
over the neighborhood. So that one knows things are not
only internal. So that one can imagine turning. Or one
can just turn. As if for the first time. So that one
could choose, perhaps, as looking at the redbud in the yard
brings back every happiness. Where have you been?
I’m sorry, I’ve been a kind of fish, with my wet eyes.

John Gallaher’s current book of poetry is My Life in Brutalist Architecture (Four Way Books 2024). Recent poems appear in APR, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Blackbird, among others. He lives in northwest Missouri and co-edits the Laurel Review.