I watched you break away from the tether that bound you
Bobbling haplessly into the heights
Guided by wind’s unseen current, this way and that
Until the chains of gravity could not pull you back
I watched you become
A contrasting pinpoint in the clear blue
Rising toward the sun
By now
you hope you learned
from past mistakes
you read self help
ponder Lao Tzu
watch the willows bend
and not break
and think that
by now
you should see mistakes
sidestep the mess
with a skip in your step
whistle past distractions
and noise and regrets
that hold you
By now…
She wears her mood
like a robe
bright, bold
dark or dusty
and with it
she colors the world
Rainbows are dripping from the ceilings amid giggles from little girls
happiness lives here and I wonder how I’ve lived so long
without remembering
In you I came to know birth and death
neither remembered nor explained
an ellipses
space only guessed
Ants crawl slowly on the cold tile floor
of a place I’d rather not be
I watch them move somewhat pointedly but
in no particular direction
Disorderly confusion, actually
I am lost and searching
and they are lost and searching
over the expanse of marbled squares
for some small crumb to carry home
You began the conversation with
“We need to talk”
but talk is the last thing I wanted
I knew it signaled the demise of the silence
that held things tightly and neatly in place
It would begin the process of unboxing
which is messy, in words
Our winter come to end
in dignified formality
you were gone
You were cold when I met you
with bitter winds and sleet that chilled the bones
and stung bare skin
Etched
but beautiful and dazzling
sun on shards of broken glass
a blizzard, a tumult
a beginning
Indelible ink on skin
the blood red border of a new tattoo
A chosen scar to decorate or maybe hide the ones that weren’t
Chosen…
Only the grave
in silent darkness
keeps secrets so well
as skin thickened by never told wounds, colored and outlined in black
The officer comes in, straight face
the focus, he knows, is de-escalation
despite the mother’s bruises and her children’s tears
what happened here
is simple in the way nothing is, ever
It’s 1977 or 8 or 9
the time, it runs together when you see the same faces day by day
He, the husband has been drinking, again
shouting slurred words, imagined offenses
And the wife, with her children behind her just asks that he please leave
So the children can sleep
So that they can have peace, though the oldest one knows it’s just temporary
The officer can see it in her eyes, the kid, no more than 6 who dialed 911 because her mother was taking blows and couldn’t get to the phone…
He says, “come on sir, let’s go”
takes the husband by the arm and guides him outside, where the blue and white lights of his cruiser cast eerie dancing shadows on the homes facade.
They are visitors, these shadows.
Reminders to the officer that all is not well here,
And he thinks of his wife and his child, at home.
Golifely 