“Moment of Perfection"
by Timothy Liu The earth has moved forward, in a sense, or does it merely turn against itself? The trees have moved forward, putting forth leaves, shade. But I have not moved forward though I was surely moved. At the St. Regis Hotel , the butlers change fresh roses that need no changing, butlers who are paid to notice the most infinitesimal, the almost unseen, the earth turning towards its own demise, too far off to be seen, myself all along hoping for a longer winter to burrow in for just a few more months instead of turning forty here in this world that you have left me but the weather asks us to emerge, face the present conditions we'd never have imagined, not to the dream of love returned but of love withheld and its unsettling tensions as the earth turns, no matter where we turn, the tension in the simultaneous seasons moving across the face of the earth, in all the leaves that will lose their shimmer, given time, while I wait inside the unseen decay of a hotel