New Poetry by John Grey

The Three Largest Cities In Europe

I keep watch in your sleep,

unwitting expressions I name like the birds,

a tremble, a sigh, like you’ve reached

the top of a hill –

I’ve kept up – I’m beside you.

It’s the face I saw when I was a child,

in the garden rose,

the blinding light at the top of the column,

in window mist after a day of rain.

When we are together,

we are five of the four elements,

candles flutter in our veins,

nerves climb stairs

then go down again.

I have loved you

in the three largest cities in Europe,

the sun-yellowed Italian piazza,

in the winter of separation,

in memory and expectation.

I find you in heaps of fine hay,

in red clay, morning upon morning,

in the solstice, the ripening trees -

on days when I hear no voices,

I listen to yours.

And yes,

when the lake is smooth as a cheek,

your shadow makes ripples in the water.

- © John Grey 2021

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Penumbra, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, “Leaves On Pages” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and Held.