Taking Stock...The Things That Matter Most

you bleed poetry onto pulp the color of the ink depending upon the day or maybe the time his memory slices and it’s so hard to let go

a heart wrapped around a light post pronounced dead on arrival this time you finally let go this time you won he couldn’t flat-line you

sometimes love hurts more than it helps sometimes it kills you in it’s process

i have seen the fog turn to a greasy film on glass and the men in shirt-sleeves have all gone inside leaving the windows only to watch the rain meet the cobblestones

it would not have been worth it...after all to split the day open like a ripe peach then to find the black stone at its center

i am undone by the way she turns half smile half wildfire

and still

i opened the door once to the long ash road thinking the dark might have a voice this time but the wind just blew loose soot across the floor

she is not coming back from the pond behind the orchard where the clay stays wet and the sheep won't drink the wool shawl she once wore still hanging by the lock

now a lone blackbird sits on the beam above my bed it brought the smell of the river mud inside its eye a small bead of yellow glass that watches the lamp oil burn the wick and will not let the morning open

i have stood still when the dog down the road stopped barking and heard the sound of an old engine turning over far off across the dark bottomland

it was not a sound to call me back or say goodbye and further still...a hawk dropped through the pine boughs with nothing but the wind to keep it steady

wicker creel greasy salt stained leather strap on a rusted nail eaten by mice

crates of iron spikes bundles of tax receipts and the names we never called they must have burned in the ditch

so we live in this nuclear winter a fragile ceasefire that, agonizingly….must never break our distance is weaponized peace as if always on the edge the ledge of striking…no… shattering we are two empires holding our breath across the divide careful not to bend because our gravity pulls like the static before the sirens cry it is a miracle we haven't triggered the fallout left to our impulses our ghosts it’s safer if we keep our borders closed for the grieving stars

tonight