by Martin Willitts Jr

You situate within your own space,
wearing a slice of quiet
inside the valley of noise-stirrings.
 
When you narrow-focus,
the rest of world vanishes,
taking me with it.
 
You place the Earth into a blue cardboard box
with a lavish green bottom. Everything 
you could possibly want is at your fingertips.
You could slice time as thin as onions,
breaking the surface of silence.
 
I feel I’ve penetrated a sanctuary.
But occasionally, you need to break concentration,
breathe, to join this unsubtle world of jab 
and unruly interruptions.
 
I miss you. I wear out the floor tile, waiting 
on the other end, like a long country road at night,
impossible to tell land, darkness, and edges blending.

Martin Willitts Jr., a Comstock Review editor, has 25 chapbooks including the Turtle Island Quarterly Editor’s Choice Award, “The Wire Fence Holding Back the World” (Flowstone Press, 2017), plus 21 full-length collections including the Blue Light Award 2019, “The Temporary World.” His new full-length is “Harvest Time” (Deerbrook Press, 2021).