sun’s steady breaths ink open
the first paragraphs of another day.
shoes crunch across the glass
from a departed car window,
drunks stumbling
to find direction or peace
while the city rubs its eyes
clear of disbelief.
still reeling from
the morning I left your bed
for good.
the Lawrence el arrives.
8:30 southbound, sick, slow train,
full of rails enough to drive it elsewhere
every time.
skinned knees two mornings after all
of everything we said,
and the imprint of your unsure arms
still holds me.…
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if there were ears
to hear
there is no sign,
only ebbing ripples show
where I threw that stone.
no sounds
no flecks of color
no cheerful splashes
mark the site.
that missile
plucked carefully
from fertile dirt,
smooth
and true within my hand.
lofted with a shout
then turning,
shining
briefly in the air.
now sunken, dark
and out of sight.…
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the sun licks brittle leaves,
golden shiver of revelation.
the lies I told myself pierce
this vale, our decayed gulf
stark yellow now.
cold resolution quickens,
birdless horizon unveiled,
shadows on clouded eyes.
breath leaves in spirals, blooming
chill tendrils along obscure paths.
flickering cressets now naked and unhooded,
blurred tales raked aside, false and fallen.
look: here
the stories of trees and stones, moss and salt;
a book of signs, sigils written with rain–
these were never hidden.
bared truth beneath a smile’s distraction;
there, waiting beside remembered footprints,
calling across the clearing between us
in the dying sunlight.
– Fritz Eifrig…
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