Linear

I am no longer linear
at least not for this moment
into which I seem to have squeezed
several other moments unexpectedly

I opened a gap I found
between my thoughts
like a gate between
a façade of housefronts
in front of an unknown beyond

I must have dragged those extra moments
past and future
through that gap
like universes wrung indelicately
through a giant black hole
and wondered idly
sitting around with my other selves
past and fuure
knowing all we now know
shouldn’t we leave a clue
a message in a bottle
for when the gap closes
and the gate clanks shut
and the façade of thoughts returns
one by one by one

Barry Harris is the editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and four anthologies from Brick Street Poetry. He has published one poetry collection, Something at the Center. His poetry has appeared in Kentucky Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Grey Sparrow, Silk Road Review, Saint Ann‘s Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Awaken Consciousness and others. Barry lives in Brownsburg, Indiana and is retired from Eli Lilly and Company. Married and father of two grown sons, he  graduated a long time ago with a major in English from Ball State University.