Paige Roberts works as an archivist at Phillips Academy in Andover when she’s not swimming or hiking. Her work has appeared in the Muddy River Review, and the Bagel Bard Anthology.

Paige Roberts

Standard Time

All that’s been is all that will be,
every moment arising anew.

I am going nowhere
when I would be playful and whole
(though the ego noise is deafening).
Am I invisible–hidden, unseen, overlooked–
self protection by concealment?

Almost everything (that matters)
is imperceptible, only a sliver of the universe.
An ache of loneliness, yearning for
the celadon of connection.
my timelines of lost chances
what I would want it to be about
if you were nearby

Incongruity of the change of seasons:
feathery rime ice on rock cairns and birds poking at purple lilacs.
The tenacity of existence is conditional.

Reconciling my self–limitless but
never inviolate (even when intoxicated with desire)–
to the movable conversational frontier.

Do I seek the power to control
the transition between the visible and invisible?

Dismantling duration.

— Paige Roberts

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