Regular Poem: Significant Quotations

Where were we
when we were here
before?

It’s one of those
repeated phrases
meaningful and meaningless
a motif
(bigger than a symbol
smaller than a theme
I used to explain
when I used to do
that sort of thing).

“But can’t
an author just write something
and it’s that something
and not something else?”
someone would inevitably say.
“Yes, but that’s not
why they pay me the big bucks,”
current me would’ve glibly retorted
if she’d been there.
I can’t recall
what I probably said then–
some diatribe
about the merit of literature
some obtuse
thing
to inspire thought
but mostly confound
and that’s why I got fired.
(That’s another motif.)

Regardless
here I am again,
here under a full moon,
a rare astronomical phenomenon,
like so many before–
blood moons and eclipses and super moons–
each coming and passing
and all promising and not satisfying,
romantic yet nothing–
“Do you always
watch for the longest day in the year
and then miss it?”

If my voice
must be full of money
why can’t I be, too?