Dangling Conversation

“It’s a still-life watercolor
Of a now-late afternoon
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room

And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar

In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs
The borders of our lives

And you read your Emily Dickinson
And I my Robert Frost
And we note our place with book markers
That measure what we’ve lost

Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm
Couplets out of rhyme
In syncopated time”