will dolben
Swimming and Driving
We’re leaving Los Angeles,
driving too fast
north.
We live 10 blocks apart.
Like New Hampshire.
We’re still 16,
now older.
This is not a pool.
We race without walls.
Whatever we lost
we will find
in this canyon.
The Mission at Dusk
We walk the garden slowly.
Fog grows in the harbor,
sea smoke fills the town.
This is November in California.
I remember other days—
colder, thousands of miles away—
racing dark to reach the water,
moments of vanishing light.
We are here and there together.
Lovers inside us never disappear.
The family on the blanket
looks perfectly, permanently lost.
Where You Are
Ten minutes ago,
there was an earthquake
43 miles north
in Los Alamos, California.
Like last time, you felt nothing.
You had the music loud
so you couldn't hear—
the picture of home
on the floor in the closet
cracked.
Will Dolben holds a master's in writing from the University of Southern California's MPW program, now known as the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts. He was a quarterfinalist in the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences international screenwriting competition.