porch

All the houses in a row, 

the cluttered gutters the color of

wasted tears and worthless winter,

weighed down with gray clouds and

blue sky broken by the paths of

branches, frozen for a moment, 

a portrait of intimate longing 

bare limbs raised seeking

the blessings of the divine sun,

my bare knobby knees and

slack surrendered flesh exposed

despite the season I sit and 

stare at the streets and sky,

sober and smokeless and

spitting every invective known.

I have become that old man,

hollow eyes boring holes in

everyone they touch, scouring 

the distance as if awaiting a sign

never to be seen in this or 

any life, a Halloween decoration out

so long it serves as a warning—

abandon all hope ye who enter—

poison apple or Alighieri. 

Some day you too will fall

heaven pressed into unseeing unseeing eyes,

your prophecies piled on like stones.