We don’t remember light. We remember
the dark. The cruelties; the misgivings.
We remember winter and fistfuls
of ice, like cold salt tossed in a face
with contempt, a form of shunning, bitter
the gesture; the censure of wind and snow.
“I love you and I always will.”
Last words spoken between dearest of friends
parting ways unknown.
Hope lingered therein,
that one day no more need for “always” would come
– only the existence of that fact would overtake
by revisited presence and love.
I've never unhinged the door
to invite in the light of reason,
always incurious, cemented in
my own world unless someone
comes, absorbed in the waves
of my own heartbeat with
nothing to trouble me inside
Winters coaxed this sandspit
From shore and outgoing tides,
In radiant disarray, have returned
Land to the harbor by at least a half,
Leaving mud flats adorned with
Alluvial fans, hump-backed inlets
First light frosting the tree line, and I close the door
On the rest of the house and leave the need for sleep
To others. At such an hour, with dark still lingering,
The stars blown apart and a waning moon near vanishing,
I’ve become too well acquainted with the dark dialect ...