"Shadow Boxers" & "In the Leaving" by James Lilliefors

Shadow Boxers

Here again, that strange time of day          

when certain shadows of the past 

meet less-than-certain shadows 

of the future, unwitting partners

sparring dimly by interior light.

Our compulsions come out 

to watch, with their vicarious desires,

before the shadows finally recede 

again, into another day – or is it night? 

The two always circling each other 

like anxious prizefighters, 

looking for a way in.

Reminding us, if only briefly, 

what we started with. 

What we have left: a lifetime.

In the Leaving

(Ode to Jim Beam)               

The last time I had you inside me

was ten years ago today, 

when I decided to resist the next day’s 

calling – as familiar by then 

as drain-water flushing through wall-pipes, 

whisking away all doubt and resolve.

You’ve come calling since, 

to remind me – how lovely the late light 

looked through your golden-brown haze, 

how delicious the cool cavern-y air tasted, 

soaked with your sweet heady vapor.

What it did to the soul. 

We can celebrate together if you wish, 

though I will not welcome you in.

Knowing now who you are, what you did. 

But we may reminisce from a distance

just the same, recalling what we went through 

together, the good and the bad. 

Then I will again find life in the leaving 

and celebrate what remains.

James Lilliefors is a poet, journalist, and novelist, whose writing has appeared in Door Is A Jar, Ploughshares, Salvation South, Anti-Heroin Chic, Mobius, The Washington Post, Miami Herald and elsewhere. He's a former writing fellow at the University of Virginia, now living in Florida. His most recent novel was THE CHILDREN'S GAME (written as Max Karpov).