Joey Haley The Shadow Room

April 12-13, 2025

The Shadow Room

Your reflection
cast into infinity,
containing your presence,
extending
in a wave of light.
Your presence at night,
in the blue wilderness,
your words spaced between
a static scene.
With the illusion of movement,
you met my carbon copy,
left seated
in the red hotel lobby.
I remember watching in
through rented eyes;
human form we had
in the fragment of a city.
In the dark corridor,
shadow play,
offering the illusion of nothing,
before you open the door.
The garden,
where your hair was white,
I remember
the decorative kites,
and how through tea we transcended
in the summer that never ended.
Variant patterns,
where faces form;
repeated is this symmetry.
I remember a house,
it was deeply shaded
by glowing elms.
I remember the plaza;
We’d walk the grounds.
Memories fade
into the new conclusion
that we have found.

-Joey Haley, 2024