Impermanence by Daniel Sklar

Names on lists disappear.
Names on lists are replaced
with other names.
People in these offices
will be different.
Other people will walk
the halls and paths
with important things
on their mind.
Like the books
you read in high school,
things disintegrate.
There are new dreams
of strangers saying things
to one another
like the ones before.
Everything will be new
until it isn't.
It gets easier and easier
to say good-bye to things
like the voices and lights
from other rooms
and the unrest
closing in on love.
Your signal flashes
to the world
like a star long gone.
You look forward to being
a memory which is what
you were in the first place.



Daniel Sklar teaches Creative Writing at Endicott College, and has been published in the Harvard Review, English Journal, Beat Scene, and the New York Quarterly among other journals. His books include Flying Cats, Hack Writer, and Bicycles, Canoes, Drums. He rides a bicycle to work.