Each day some half down arrival, each day a hapless waving goodbye, the day because, the day despite. The slow spun sun and the long stretch of shadow, the greet and meet of leaves in the gutter, the promenade of parked cars awaiting the next set of actions as the light walks its beat. The ache towards and the ache until, the ghost at the gutter, the gaze upon the windowsill. The magic in the witness so quickly gives way to the goodbye in the twilight’s glow.
Welcome what we may, it comes in nights and days. Memory eventually stretches us too thin on the receiving side, hope gliding astride the fabulous and the apocryphal, cue ball to pool hall felt. Lately the breaks don’t favor, the shots don’t go as called. The cold arrives without breaking stride, wave after wave, the tables of the tide. Falling east and fading west, the words without end.
The words are there, but the poems won’t play, looking at their hands and fiddling with their phones. It’s the age of attrition as the body fails in systems and singles, some longings only the empty left keening on, with your whole heavy heart like a grieving dog on the grave of living. Head hung and bell wrung, I hunch beneath untold wonders, blessings shaking me awake on cold nights as I try in vain to shake off these dreams. The crystal constellations and the moon high in the pines. A table of huddled intimates, a clinking of dishes and a lilt of laughter, waking to forget the words. Every love and greeting with winter all that’s left.
