After the Tour
On the way to the train station,
an admission that moments, details,
are slipping away already—
it’s bound to happen anyhow,
but it’s what
memory does best in failing:
the drops
of rain in the Bywater
become a byproduct
of salt in the air like
a sound. Sometimes we all
feel a bit
distant from ourselves,
a periphery off the map,
arriving like a new person
in old skin,
jotting down adjunct thoughts
and images to store
in gloss and harmony
with each tree we touched
without feeling, each ending
already decided with more
hope than ink, with
a touch of potential,
a touch of unravel.
Adam Clay is the author of Stranger (Milkweed Editions, 2016), A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (Milkweed Editions, 2012), and The Wash (Parlor Press, 2006). His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, Crab Orchard Review, Boston Review, Iowa Review, The Pinch, and elsewhere. A co-editor of TYPO Magazine, he serves as a Book Review Editor for Kenyon Review and teaches at the University of Illinois Springfield.
