Monday, October 1, 2012

DAYS LIKE GRAVEL

days like gravel
tiny stones in my shoes
lodging in places
I cannot dig out
with dirty jagged fingernails
searching the numb surface
wanting to pick them off like scabs
that could ooze and bleed
and be bandaged up
only to be ripped off
white flags surrendering

mornings
swirling around and around
in a bottomless cup of coffee
that cannot be swallowed
over the lump
in my silent parched throat
thirsty from the deluge

my baby boy’s senseless
brain aneurysm
his tiny too-big head and perfect skin
and heart failure and death so close
which keeps me in a foreign country
where I cannot hold
the weathered hand of
my emaciated father
while his cancer slowly kills him
all this and
the departure of the you that is me
these words
cannot be enveloped
in metaphors
to vomit out
that which sickens me
alone in this homeless room
they sit on the page
with their literal tragedy
the narrative of my life
and there’s nowhere to go
but here