Loop

It was during the day
It was during a day
when everything I was
became what I was to become

It must be now
It must have been now
January a day in January
when life said its goodbyes

I so wanted to be there
amongst the things
not to understand
but to be aware

It must have been night
It must have been a night with snow
when whatever my heart stored
began radiating

at an incomprehensible speed
seen like a blast of heat
joining the world of the past

It could have been you
it must have been you
who saw me living

CARL ADAMSHICK received an Oregon Literary Fellowship from Literary Arts and is a cofounder of Tavern Books. His poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the Harvard Review, the Missouri Review, American Poet, and Narrative magazine. He is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Birches. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is an editor for Tavern Books.