Michael T. Young Verse-Virtual 2016 June

June 2016

I studied and practiced martial arts almost fanatically when I was a teenager but injured my back when I was fifteen. I started writing poetry and by the time my back healed, I decided to be a poet rather than the next Bruce Lee. Since then I’ve published four collections of poetry and received recognitions such as a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. You can keep up with my work at www.michaeltyoung.com.

Counterpoint

In the cemetery at the end of the block
there is a stone for Musico.
And I think how this harmonizes
with other disjointed rhythms--
my glance out of tune with the daylight
so I have to look twice to clearly see the name,
my sense of vertigo when I turn back
and feel the speed of the passing cars
just off the sidewalk, and later that night,
our misunderstanding, naming the constellations,
disagreeing about the visible hemispheres.
It's by such dissonance I know
that I am dying in my rhythms,
but living in the counterpoint:
that someone will wake up fifteen minutes late,
while I wake before the alarm goes off,
and looking out the window, watch clouds
change colors in the morning light.