Last Morning with Steve Orlen

“Last Night I wrote a Russian novel or maybe it was English.
Either way, it was long and boring.  My wife’s laughter
might tell you which it was, and when she stops,
when she’s not laughing, let’s talk about the plot,
and its many colors. The blue that hovered in the door
where the lovers held each other but didn’t kiss.
The red that by mistake rose in the sky with the moon,
and the moon-colored sun that wouldn’t leave the sky.
All night I kept writing it down, each word arranged
in my mouth, but now, as you can see, I’m flirting
with my wife. I’m making her laugh. She’s twenty.
I’m twenty-five, just as we were when we met, just
as we have always been, except for last night’s novel,
Russian or English, with its shimmering curtain of color,
an unfading show of Northern Lights, what you, you asshole,
might call Aurora Borealis.
So sit down on the bed with my wife and me.
Faithful amanuensis, you can write down my last words,
not that they’re great but maybe they are.
You wouldn’t know. You’re an Aurora Borealis.
But my wife is laughing and you’re laughing too.
Just as we were at the beginning, just as we are at the end.”

--Michael Collier

         (originally published in Greensboro Review)