+

Ryan Collins

 

A Moment Frozen in Time between Two Men Realizing that Maybe in Another Life They Were the Same Man

 

There I was looking at
The likeness of my likeness
I could not look away
From my other life
Where I thought I would
Have I felt no weight  
Under the strain of my head 
Life going on whether I can
Open my eyes or stay
In one place longer than
Another at the same time
Where I can’t be recognized

Where I was I wasn’t
Alike to myself is not alike
I thought I would have glasses
To see my other life clearly
Where I was I would never be
Flex in my knees & elbows
Under the weight of my other
I could not recognize myself
Without knowing where I was
I couldn’t stand to be
Somewhere else with myself
I am the other man I’ve seen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~

Ryan Collins is the author of A New American Field Guide & Song Book (H_NGM_N Books) and several chapbooks of poetry, most recently Where the Wind Bends Backwards (918studio, with Erin M. Bertram). His poems have recently appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue, NightBlock, Pinwheel, PEN Poetry Series, Pretty LIT, Southern Indiana Review, and Verse (online). He is the Executive Director of the Midwest Writing Center, and curates the SPECTRA Poetry Reading Series in Rock Island, Illinois where he lives.