Ten Years Before I Met You

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Ten Years Before I Met You Blas Falconer (bio) 70 kilometers eastof the capital, I livedin one of many buildings ofthe communist era, the imageof efficiency and utility,though the mines closed years before,Russian no longer required in school.Each morning for work, I walkedtoward the center, though it seemedI'd never get there, pastthe butcher shop, the church,the station, where trains came and went,almost empty, the bar fullby mid-morning. A path up the hill,from which you could seethe whole city—I would goone day. In winter, the skybecame a wall, the snow never ending.At the bus stop, no one spokeEnglish. When it came, late and full,it stopped, but the doorsdid not open. Some nights, I stoodin the orange booth, calling outto anyone who would answer. I grew lean,over the months, shedding whatI brought but didn't need,until my loneliness becamebeautiful, whetting a wantinside me, and when the rowof cottonwoods that lined the streetsbloomed in March, their seedsfloated through the air, a nuisance, butlike a dream. A gift from—whom? Someone tried [End Page 102] to tell me once. I cannotremember. I didn't understand. [End Page 103] Blas Falconer Blas Falconer is the author of three poetry collections, including Forgive the Body This Failure. His poems have been featured by Poetry, Kenyon Review, and The Georgia Review, and his awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange. He is a poetry editor for The Los Angeles Review and teaches in the MFA program at San Diego State University. www.blasfalconer.com Copyright © 2022 Pleiades and Pleiades Press