UPDATE 9/2023: GBR has returned from a long hiatus and is reopen for submissions of fiction and nonfiction.
Richard Spilman is the author of In the Night Speaking and of a chapbook, Suspension. His poetry has appeared in many magazines, including Poetry, The Southern Review, American Literary Review, and The Gettysburg Review.
Buying Light
Richard Spilman
In a shop full of overpriced
housewares, she found a lamp,
a tensor, one of those
tiny spotlights that bleach
words clean off the page,
and asked if she should buy it.
I said, “It’s up to you. I don’t know
what kind of light you need.”
We went back and forth
like that about a lot of things.
Later, when we were no longer
In love, I understood.
She didn’t care what I said,
she didn’t care what light she used,
she just wanted me to choose.
