by Aaron Giovannone

Smoke pours from the smoke machine,
hisses out, spills upside down into the air
where we’re at a party. Ta da.

I don’t know you
but we’re talking.
It’s a miracle of drunkenness
not reproducible under sober conditions.

Whatever’s said dissolves in the machine’s hum,
whatever’s seen in time’s fumes.
It smells like a wedding reception in 1987.

Apparently we dance
and having forgotten this I feel
even farther from you.

Aaron Giovannone’s poetry has appeared in a number of magazines and literary journals, including Canadian Literature, Descant, Event and The Fiddlehead. He has won grants from the Canada Council for the Arts as well as the International Council for Canadian Studies, and he recently spent a year at the University of Siena researching Italian poetry and translation. In the fall, he will begin doctoral studies in literature at the University of Calgary.