Seconds Before Closing

What would you remember if the doors were about to close?Structured as a countdown through the final seconds before closing, William Cannon’s Seconds Before Closing is a contemporary poetry collection about mortality, grief, memory, aging, and the strange beauty of being alive.Against the rugged landscape of coastal Maine, Cannon moves between ghosts and old friends, lost family members and faithful dogs, moonlit roads and harbor mornings, childhood regrets and unexpected moments of grace. Death is always nearby, but so are coffee, music, laughter, friendship, sea air, and the stubborn human desire to keep moving.These poems find the extraordinary inside ordinary experience. A walk with a dog becomes a meditation on time. A rainy afternoon opens the door to old memories. A rock on the shoreline becomes evidence of eternity. Even sorrow can be repaired with the gold of remembrance.Conversational, imaginative, darkly humorous, and emotionally honest, Seconds Before Closing explores the questions that grow louder as life moves forward: What do we carry with us? What deserves forgiveness? Can grief and gratitude exist together? And how do we learn to love life while knowing that it must end?For readers drawn to contemporary American poetry, poems about grief and loss, nature poetry, spiritual reflection, and writing about aging and memory, this collection offers an intimate journey through the final seconds and everything that makes those seconds worth holding.