Friday, March 6, 2009

Hard Lesson :


Have I said to you everything


that’s needed to say?


**


While the words pull at me,


a spent cigarette smolders in the safety-tray,


a car moves, screeching, up the road,


and, somewhere,


a kid confronts the probable conflicts of the street.


**


Have I told you of all I worry about?


All the worries of my mis-spent youth,


calling back to you;


recalling the presence of doubts and fears,


and the unasked tingle up the spine:


A darkened vision of the dead man,


lying next to a coffee table.

**


The memory of a loss conjures these things.


**


I’m clasping my chest, recalling the absence,


the shock, I felt


on a day like any other:


That empty chair,


tugging at me,


in its solidity;


the silence, encompassing the circle


of a hard lesson learned.


`x~William ~copyright, 03/06/09.