Chris Campanioni

Something Else

it was the year of limousines
and pretending to swallow
and you were fond of
telling me that
everything looks better

from the window
of a cruising vehicle
if even only a yellow cab
something else
about blurred intensity

how beauty is very often
indistinct, barely-
there, just now
gone—your words, not mine—
and even in the silence

you laughed, all year long
taking everything in
pretending to taste it
and that you liked the taste
and what’s more

everything was moving
so fast anyway
which is what
you always also added
except that you were standing

still half the time
standing still or sitting
one foot next to the other
sometimes even
touching, fingers

in place

Chris Campanioni is a native New Yorker and a first-generation Cuban- and Polish-American. His recent work has appeared in theNewerYork, Blunderbuss, Literary Orphans, The Brooklyn Rail, The Wrong Quarterly, Rosebud Magazine, and Fjords Review. Find him in space at www.chriscampanioni.com or in person, somewhere between Brooklyn Bridge Park and Barclays Center.