Where is Everything that Escapes?

How did I become this gray,

decrepit creature in the mirror,

splotched and sagging?

Whatever august grace and wisdom

I imagined when young and harassed

escapes the mirror’s crisp edges.

Limits

We can apprehend beauty only

by framing it with the photographic

paper’s edge or the novel’s margins

and bookends. The whole of it

always eludes us and we sense

we are missing something

beyond our small horizons.

You Abandon Beauty

The light leaks out of your eyes

in search of clearer lenses

and fewer wrinkles in the lids.

The body grows tired of so much

demand for attention to be paid.

Work by Gary Hardaway has appeared at Gumball Poetry, Manifold, Silkworms Ink, Camroc Press Review, The Olentangy Review, The Arlington Review, and Blue Fifth Review. He currently lives in Texas and has earned his living as an urban planner and architect. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY KAIT MAURO