Roads to somewhere are always lined with dead things once headed
north, south, east or west of where they now lie still
the living pass the gaping mouths and fixed eyes
without thought to their own fragility
or how this road beginning
is something’s ending
to begin again as something new
Poems
February
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
January
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
Chosen
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
