January 7, 2020

• your shadow

  

   

  i could swear your shadow is sitting
  on the balcony whereas just last night
  i saw it lying in a casket of light
  and last week it galloped along the
  side of the road clippity clopping
  like fat fingers drumming a table.

  resembling a drunken bee, your shadow
  stumbled to my outstretched hand.
  sotto voce: apropos of nothing–
  did you know that in the nineteenth century
  sociopaths were called “moral imbeciles”?
  encircled by thorns, your shadow, like the wild rose,
  is trying to bloom in the wrong season.

  when it rains, either it’s not enough to soak
  the earth or it’s enough for your shadow
  to think about building an ark.
  standing on the other side
  of the french door, it looks at me
  at once feeling embarrassed and disgusted
  that it is unable to talk…

  when did your shadow lose its head?
  when did it take its place at my table
  gilded in gold? when did it talk to the wrong
  stranger and lose its carefully constructed partitions?
  your shadow tours its compartments, reading
  the posters that tell your story :  what began
  with faith ends in folly,

  what seemed like a blessing conjured a curse.
  choices are a history already written,
  spiraling out of control.   no amount of
  love can save it, no amount of wishing
  can stop it.  your shadow rocks back and forth
  with its finger in its eye

  like an imbecile

  • 6:48 pm
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