All the Paper
in My Life

By Eve Wood

We are born into paper—

Our lives bookended in signatures,

A certificate

To prove you exist

And another to prove you

Do not, each day teeming

With permits, credentials

For entry and forms to depart,

Passports, agendas,

Records of evidence and

Evidence of nothing

But paper, reams of it,

A million loose leafed sheets

Let go on the wind, snippets

From diaries and highly classified

Lies, love letters and all

The annulments of love

Floating suddenly over the embankment

After the explosion

That leaves you

Naked and alive.

 

Holding Pattern

By John Tottenham

She demanded to be held.

So I held her.

She collapsed lifelessly into my arms

and remained there,

while I lay there, with mind elsewhere,

wondering how much longer

I was supposed to hold her for.

After what seemed like a long time,

I gently disengaged myself

and got out of the bed.

She looked coldly up at me from the pillow.

She said that she would find somebody else:

somebody who would want to hold her

for two hours

after an act of love

that lasted two minutes.