« John Grey » LONGING FOR THE TRUE NATURE OF EVENTS Dark bar, fourth beer, and always a piano man blandly tinkling the minor American song book. Why not a knife thrower or a sword swallower or a fire eater. I could get accidentally stabbed or pierced or singed for my trouble. But no, it's only off-key notes that drift out to the shadow. No wounds, no blood... when tunes reach me, they're done with hurting. MOMENTARY You brush your hair in lamplight. breaths to match my heartbeat. No irony tonight, just sound. No complications, just graceful movement. If only I could save these like pennies in a china pig... for the next argument, the next time I'm staring into nothing but blackness. Or even for tomorrow, when I'm driving to work, at the water cooler, eating stale sandwiches in the cafeteria, when the moments feel like nothing but connective tissue. But your hands move through incandescence, your breathing is a breathless kind. John Grey's latest book is What Else Is There from Main Street Rag. He has been published recently in Agni, Hubbub, South Carolina Review and The Journal Of The American Medical Association.