Not grasping your hand * on pause
Not coming closer * taking a detour
Not to dock no dock * more than arm’s length
Neither seen with nor transparent * locked in lock down
No double shadow * fingertips stopped short of gratitude
Not two redwoods * emerging from fog
Nor tracing surfaces lightly * as headlights stroke the garage door
Neither lapsing, nor * like a tide gone out
Not the way color, say the neighbor’s tree * of persimmons speaks
Not without portent * from a distance
Not as the wind plunges itself * into its own pocket
Not the cloud * but where the cloud was
Not yet the end * of “we”
Forrest Gander was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his collection Be With. Born in the Mojave Desert in Barstow, California, Gander resides in Petaluma.
