You might know it as yesterday.

It currently sits in a back room
knowing its moment wrinkled

like water over creek stones
then passed thoughtlessly away

so now it holds vigil
elbows propped on the windowsill

studying rabbits and how
they topple forward in small leaps

to bury tiny scissoring
teeth in tender clover

sensing the seeds of return
somehow live within this gesture.

###

Michael Bazzett’s work has appeared in Ploughshares, Massachusetts Review, The Sun, 32 Poems and Best New Poets. He is the author of the chapbooks, The Imaginary City (Organic Weapon Arts, 2012) and The Unspoken Jokebook, forthcoming from Organic Weapon. His debut collection, You Must Remember This, (Milkweed Editions, 2014) won the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry. Visit him at michaelbazzett.com.

“The Old Now” originally appeared in Architrave Press’ Edition 2 on March 25, 2012.