Back in school I learned
Perspective was something for art class
Straight edges and connecting lines
To find a vanishing point
Now I am old enough to know better
I don’t know where the lines are any more
Until I step over them or someone does
And it turns out there is an out of bounds
In a game I didn’t know was being played
And I was the game
Still it’s hard to draw a line
When it feels like someone has stepped over mine
Especially when that was someone was you
Even when you forgot about what you used to call
Brought-up-sy
And relied upon static lines on a screen to tell me
You were drawing a line between us
It was for good
And you were vanishing
From that point
What I had admired as your calm
Began to feel like disengagement
Your even temper like inattention
You might say
I changed my perspective unfairly
About the way you forgot my birthday
Pooh-poohed me
When I tried to tell you
There is no real mail delivery on this Rock
Yet wishful-thinkingly posted something I never ever got
Anyway
By now I guess it’s followed you to the vanishing point
And from this perspective I know
That sure is a funny way to get a message across
Marianne Tefft (she/her) is a poet and lyricist who daylights as a Montessori teacher in Sint Maarten. Her work appears in journals and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, India, Serbia, and Sint Maarten, and on Facebook. She reads her work on her YouTube channel. She is the author of the poetry collections Full Moon Fire: Spoken Songs of Love (Tellwell Talent, 2022) and Moonchild: Poems for Moon Lovers (coming in December 2022).