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Before Light Shifts
Marc Swan

When old friends get together
and new partners
in their lives sit at the table
and the food goes into gullets
and the wine keeps pouring
and a point is reached
where memories emerge
and new partners smile and nod
as if they were enjoying these
long ago escapades
as if they were remembering things
they never experienced
and then a fresh bottle is opened
and the conversation
shifts to them and their thoughts
on life and the world
which lasts a quick round
before words drift back
to when old friends lived
a life new partners
would never understand
or want to in fact.

—
Marc Swan is a retired vocational rehabilitation counselor living in coastal Maine with his wife Dd, a maker and yoga teacher. Poems recently published in Gargoyle, Crannog, Chiron Review, Concho River Review, among others. His fifth collection, all it would take, was published by tall-lighthouse (UK) in 2020.

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Have you read these poems:
A Thankful Tale by Bill Simmons
The Thief by Brian Daldorph

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