VERITY
the madrigal, volume iv
Mountain Time
by josh lefkowitz
I know you’d like me not to say forever,
knowing just how much there is we can’t.
Promises for a lifetime? You’d say, “Never––
who knows what will happen?!” This I grant.
“Everything’s in motion,” you explained,
“and so, to stop such progress is a crime;
even mountains move, and won’t be chained––
even if they move in mountain time.”
Ever since this talk (yeah sure it’s cheesy)
I have pictured you in wedding gown.
Why? Because you make the poems so easy––
all I have to do is write you down!
Words, my love: yours make me feel alive.
See you forever? Let’s start with 5:45.
Josh Lefkowitz has published poems and essays in The New York Times, New Poetry from the Midwest 2019, Washington Square Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Electric Literature, and many other places including journals in Canada, Ireland, the UK, Germany, Australia, and Hong Kong. His poems have been read aloud on NPR and the BBC, as well as printed on the side of a bus in Nashville, Tennessee. He lives in New York City.