Much younger, first acquainted with certainty, it tasted
as crisp and tart as a green apple, but its edges became
precise, interlocking gears, a vast machine. I governed
impeccable itineraries, I tallied every petty minutia,
mortgages, insurance, taxes, attempting to grasp water,
exceedingly specific molecules. Now, I have this urge
to blur all edges, Debussy rather than Mozart, Monet
rather than Ingres, the haze, the ubiquitous haze:
a simmering August morning, heat steaming off the dew,
when the rasping din of cicadas muddles the head in
mesmerizing rhythm; when the fog is dense, oceans
and sky mingling at the wet lips of horizon, vaporous
words washing upon a shore, a diffuse La Mer;
like the estuary of young lovers who, intoxicated with
infatuation, can’t drink enough of the other or the old
couple, fused, no longer distinguishing one from the other;
when cataracts obscure our vision, our memory mists;
in the attempt to recall, thought is increasingly elusive –
which truths remain unequivocal? That moment at dusk,
the blending of day and night, I doze but still hear
the noises of routine, a dog, a truck, an unhappy baby,
vague pieces of conversation. I hover, a magical levitation,
between consciousness and dream, at the eradication
of hours, at the blurring of edges.

Daniel David is a writer, artist and professor living along the southern shore of Lake Erie in North America. His poems have appeared widely in a number of venues across the United States, in Canada and the United Kingdom. His publications also include articles in the Journal of Creative Behavior; chapbooks: Close to Home and Two Buddha; and his novel, Flying Over Erie.