Issue 16 • Winter 2005 • Poetry

Remainder

Charles Jensen

Take one away from one and suddenly there's not much left. The absence of one comes on like first frost: the weakest plants die first, then others, then others, until the world itself bears a whitish ripple from the point of departure outward. I feel for you when you get lost. There are dogs trained to find you under packed snow or in case of disaster. The world isn't ending. The world hasn't begun to end. Its least forgivable trait is persistence, the way what you lose forever leaves a hole that can never be refilled. The blindness comes with time or with snow. Everything goes white. Like how a star dies, beautiful and tragic. I'd like to be lost like that, not just vanished but leaving no trace but your thought of me. Your cold lack of me.

Charles Jensen is the author of the chapbook "Little Burning Edens." His poems have appeared in Bloom, The Journal, New England Review, Quarterly West, and West Branch; he was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. With Sarah Vap, he has published interviews with Beth Ann Fennelly, Lynn Emanuel, and C. D. Wright. He works for the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University and at Rio Salado College, where he teaches film studies.

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