Another Rejection Letter

Somebody dies--my wife’s mother--
and I’m not there when my wife
says she could hear the last breath,
the expiration breath, and she knows.

However, I have stared at the horizon at
sunset across a west-facing ocean, watching 
for that spark of green exactly as the sun 
disappears, the expiration of another day.

Maybe these are just expiration myths that help
us close up shop, help us turn the sign from
open to closed, a way to keep on living even
as we’re confused about what shop we’re in. 

I got another rejection letter today but it’s
okay. Sure, these poems aren’t going to find
a life in that journal, but there are other
journals, and other poems. 

It’s like as much as things keep closing, other
things are opening, or at least not closing,
and until we arrive at that final green spark on
the western horizon we can keep coming back 

every day if we want, to  sit in the sand tomorrow.

Casey Killingsworth has work in The American Journal of Poetry, Two Thirds North, and other journals. His first book of poems, A Handbook for Water was released by Cranberry Press in 1995 and his new collection is A nest blew down (Kelsay Books 2021). Casey has a Master’s degree from Reed College.