Jeremy Freedman

Saturday Afternoon

When it’s late on a Saturday
afternoon in winter,
and I’m on European time again,
and snow insists on falling
like the ash that fell
on provinces, towns, cities
whose names we know now
though we didn’t know then,
and I haven’t shaved or eaten
but only slept in a comfortable chair
through another Metropolitan Opera
broadcast of Aida
like my mother used to,
then I have strength only
to turn on one kitchen light
and eat a piece of processed cheese,
carefully undressing it
as if it’s a precious gift of memory
wrapped in cellophane.

When it’s late on a Saturday
afternoon in winter,
I perp-walk my woozy self
out to the wobbling sidewalk
and drag my drooping face upward
to the careless, disinterested sky
so my tongue can taste
the ceaseless falling flakes of ash.

Jeremy Freedman is an artist and writer in New York City. His photographs have been exhibited in Europe and the United States and were recently featured in Redivider, the Monarch Review, the Citron Review and the Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in Cartagena, Eclectica, The Wilderness House Literary Review, Orbis, and elsewhere. More work can be seen at jfreenyc.com.
 
 
previous page     contents     next page