Exhibit A
--Adam Clay 

Would it be enough to suggest
the smoke from across the hill 

suggests a type of life or a type of living?
I’d like to be stranger than I’ve been. 

One bite taken from an apple and left
in the yard for an animal 

to scavenge. Could this be a day
or any day? I’d like to think so. 

I’d like to think there’s something
to be said for closeness 

to death, as if nearly leaving this world
can color our existence in a particular way 

or another. I miss you, we might say
to ourselves in those moments, 

but those moments lumber ahead
without us where another person 

is making copies, sipping the last bit of coffee
for a day going, 

a day already half-gone. I miss you,
we might say to each other in those moments, 

as if repetition can be a way of
or even a minor attempt at remembering.