Viable Option

by Mindie Kniss

by Barry Harris

 

“The only viable option is….”
the voice trailed off as I passed by
like the doppler shift a car makes
on the highway as it zings into nothingness.
I wondered all the way back to my desk
what the real answer was,
what nugget of knowledge I might now know
if but my walk were a few steps slower
or my hearing keener.
It was probably just
a calendar appointment that would not fit
or a budget number that would not crunch,
but what if it were a secret of the universe
whispering in the hallway like silent wind?
What if the only viable option
was here, today, in this moment?
What if I had heard?

 

Barry Harris is editor of the Tipton Poetry Journal and has published one collection, Something At The Center, and one chapbook, The Soul At Work: Poems From The Office. His poetry has appeared in Saint Ann’s Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Night Train, The Centrifugal Eye and is forthcoming in Writers’ Bloc.