numberlessness

by L. Ward Abel

I sit here inside of now.

A ceiling fan wheels to a blur.

From here across two rooms

and outside—

          a grove.

The sacred instant. Stamped

like film, indelible. Still,

its bare brevity raises doubt

as to whether it ever even

          happens.

It lives in a place of infinity

halved then halved again then halved

to numberlessness and to where

it might cease to be

          at all.

Mass and motion

are irreducible

forking into a trillion possibles

whose nexus, this moment,

remains utterly

          alone.

I remember having been told

that this is all there is:

neither behind, ahead

once, future

forever

          now.

Photo L. Ward Abel

BIO: L. Ward Abel’s work has appeared in hundreds of journals (Rattle, Versal, The Reader, Worcester Review, Riverbed Review, Honest Ulsterman, Main Street Rag, others), including two recent nominations for a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and he is the author of three full collections and ten chapbooks of poetry, including American Bruise (Parallel Press, 2012), Little Town gods (Folded Word Press, 2016), A Jerusalem of Ponds (Erbacce-Press, 2016), The Width of Here (Silver Bow, 2021), and his latest collection, (Silver Bow, 2023).  He is a retired lawyer and teacher of literature, and he composes and plays music (Abel and Rawls). Abel resides in rural Georgia.