“How many times will you do this or that, / without being aware / of the time passing / or the time that still remains to you?” Aleksandar Ristovic

 

And it was only a corner

but I turned it with more worry

than normally I worry

 

as if that corner

was the year of my death

or a shadow of death

 

which I’ve dreamed

since I was a child

watching street lamps

 

dreaming of the day a car would forget

to stop or I’d forget to look. And this

was only a corner, one

 

of many on a round earth

and the shadows that pass

are only shadows of people

 

waiting for the lights, checking

their watches or scanning

for an acquaintance

 

as I dream of my acquaintance

turning up, as if by surprise,

an expected surprise, sure

 

as the lights twitch

back to green

after a long red.

 

 

First published in 3:AM Magazine, April 2013