There is nothing more I wanted
than anything I had
until one night the lamppost light
fizzled out over the wood-cracked bench.

In that strange moment of emptiness
I reached for something I didn’t have,
something muddled in a memory
out of reach in wakedness.

The shadow of someone surrounds me
with nothing real to offer,
nothing but a dark place
and I wonder, not sure of anything

what I had it wanted that it didn’t have.
I feel what is expected of me I must give,
mindful of what is left of me . . .
I leave to you.

Robert Savino, Suffolk County Poet Laureate 2015-2017, Bards Laureate 2019-2021, is a native Long Island poet and Board Member at the Walt Whitman Birthplace. He is the winner of the 2008 Oberon Poetry Prize and has completed a bilingual collection of Italian Americans Poets of Long Island (No Distance Between Us). His books include fireballs of an illuminated scarecrow and his collection Inside a Turtle Shell.