CORNELIO REYNA by Tim Suermondt

One of his hit songs I’m sad,
alone and forgotten
waifs nicely through the fog
of Mexico City.

I admit it’s tempting
to laugh at a man
who could sing such a sappy
song with such a sappy title.

Yet for all our bluster,
the singular hope is always
present: to love and to be loved
forever, for ten minutes at least.

Another song of his I’ve
fallen from the stars follows,
and why not? What goes down
must come up. Isn’t that it?

Tim Suermondt is the author of five full-length collections of poems, the latest JOSEPHINE BAKER SWIMMING POOL  from MadHat Press, 2019. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, december magazine, Galway Review and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.