A Shiver In Late Spring
We laughed at each other’s jokes
not more than a full moon passed.
On a slick surface, half-smiles crack
a wintry face. My soul abandons
breath in a lifeless bird’s nest
unsteady on a teetering limb.
Under bare trees, my roots
tangle in decay. Nearby,
February dips a toe into warm
streams cried, connected by
frozen acquaintances. I am
no more than a shiver
in late spring, bits of fallen bark.
Did I call you clever or cruel?
Your burly charm crumbles
like brittle bone. A silver fox
traces my lines, the comings
and goings of my own mistakes,
naivety, iniquities, my slips, stains,
incongruous existence. Winter slaps
both cheeks till summer burns
tender flesh. I called you mine or
whoever I dreamed you to be.
When did I get old, lose
my evergreen glow, my ability
to grow and stand alone?
Your laughter follows, echoes
from mockingbird skies. Love strays
into a thinning wood, more sly
than I. An enemy came disguised,
carried away my better days
with lies, came to chip at shells,
fragment smiles. I wish
for more than days connected
by endless seconds –
acquaintances, pretenses. I sip
black coffee to remind me
of your bitterness. I start days
with a half-smile because
it’s a start. I trace, get-to-know,
embrace my own lines. Dawn lifts
veils, finds my smudges -
my little gifts of
mottled, hand-me-down colors.
We traveled side-by-side
too long on far less
than a quest, more like
our own tour guides on a hike
to nowhere. We wasted time,
called each step a discovery.
You, like a cult, tried to suffocate,
berate, till silence was all I knew
of me. Tomorrow marks
the return of hazel-eyed summer.
Tonight marks the return
of a full moon's bare-backed ride
across striated sky, over my lines,
where I will find I.
(a work in progress)
Copyright © Rhonda Johnson-Saunders | Year Posted 2015
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