To See Us Now by William Taylor Jr.

If there was a time
it’s surely not anymore

and I have come to understand
that death
is a thing after all

I’m sorry for god
and all the other things
that failed

and if we can’t be beautiful
anymore let’s just fake it
for a little while

with so little time
and so much not to say

I suppose we’ll speak again
in dreams we wake from

the afternoon is tired
as the bus pulls away

and though you wouldn’t believe it
to see us now
in our best moments
we did what we could.

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. His work has been published widely in journals across the globe, including The New York Quarterly, The Chiron Review, and Catamaran Literary Reader. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a collection of short fiction. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award. To Break the Heart of the Sun is his latest collection of poetry.