not a
poem but a
painting
a
certain day
sunlight,
but
frost
in the shadows
between
houses
a man
with a gun or a
child
left
to
drown in the bathtub
soft
music on the radio
and was
this the year you
filmed
your best friend
raping
some drunken, passed-out
teenage
girl, or doesn’t that
help
narrow it down?
was it
the year of the last
unjust
war or was it
maybe
the start of the next one?
all of
this pain &
laughter
becomes a blur
and
it’s not a painting but a
photograph
i keep in
a
forgotten desk drawer
dead
white tree rising up from
its own
reflection in
the
center of a flooded field
blue
sky
endless
grace
the
last of the snow on the
far
sides of the hills and
the
obvious knowledge that
here was never worth as
much as
there
the
thirty years i spend
waiting
for you to reappear
the
first flowers of spring
filigreed
with crystals of ice
and
powerlines at some point
strung
between dull grey
poles,
but no buildings
no
signs of human machinery
the hum
in my head that
passes
for truth
when i
close my eyes
