Hot Pot Magazine

By Gerard Duncan Jr.

I feel your time zone pulling
me nine hours forward
while strangers crowd my memory
this side of Rome

there’s a blurry frame
around your morals
and I can’t help compromising
the distance between us

shadows begin to speak
in foreign whispers
from the dark
around your face

neither of us knows that language
but it doesn’t stop us
from walking down that path
the one without street lamps

Gerard Duncan Jr. is currently a lecturer at McNeese State University. He received his PhD in Poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi and previously earned his MFA in Poetry at Eastern Washington University.