We’ve come into this space,
stumbling forth
and staring back into
this stage-lit space
as if in disbelief.
The brush from which we strayed
explains this hedging dread
we can’t escape.
To cross this place,
to make that fearful flight,
half-naked, blind,
requires something secret,
sorely missed.
In trembling, lurching fits,
I seek to cross the way
across this fragile plot
where we have come to meet.
Please show me how it goes,
when I can drop my frightened ways
behind, along the newly trodden tracks
I long to leave behind.
—
David Reuter has been published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Apricity Magazine, The Cape Rock, Courtship of Winds, El Portal, Existere Journal, The Literatus, Near Window Magazine, Neologism Poetry Journal, Pennsylvania English, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Perceptions Magazine, Sandpiper, Sanskrit Literary-Arts Magazine, SLAB, South Shore Review, Visitant and Vox Poetica. He attended William Paterson University’s Writer’s Conference in 2018 and Rutgers Writers’ Conferences in 2017, 2018 and 2019. David has a bachelor’s degree from Caldwell College and works as a paralegal. In his free time he enjoys practicing martial arts, playing guitar and cooking.