o arbitrary
persona
you and me
are nobody
we get no time
I can never
remember
the beginning
suddenly just
sitting in a room
filled with sunlight
where the living is off
and I can tell this gets underwater
though I was thinking of fire
a too much
too much
skin
against
air
I want to pick us up from beneath the arms
carry us through our smoke—
we reach toward the center of each other
and wave at our love
Robert Balun received his MFA from The City College of New York, where he was a recipient of the Jerome Lowell DeJur Prize in Creative Writing and the Teacher-Writer Award. His debut chapbook, Self (Ceremony), is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. His poems have appeared in Bodega, Similar Peaks, smoking glue gun, Heavy Feather Review, Word Riot, and others. He teaches creative writing and composition at The City College of New York.
