How Much the Hollow Costs

I

It’s in the way you walk. . .

that slow mud-sunk saunter,

a graceful falter that captures

a hope in your step that the earth

might show pity,

pulling you into its cool bosom

It’s in the way you talk. . .

quiet . . . a quivering mess

of breath, stripped of girth;

a caged lyric, singed around the edges

and numbed alongside a crumbling tongue

It’s in the way you see. . .

black and gray, textured in salt,

a mass hysteria of shattered glass

midst the rubble of lost faces,

trickling from a crowded project unfinished

It’s in the way you look. . .

ashen and swirled with the dust,

a remnant, a guess drenched in a drawn rain;

flaccid in an unknowing sun,

hollowed eyes feigning a grin

that might wrap itself in a blissful bow.

II

It’s in the way you hold out your hand,

bend your fingers,

clutch your fist tight

where your fingernails

etch the grime into your palms

It’s how you listen for planes overhead

and you hear only feet 

dragging through the snow 

that falls

from a black cloud 

It’s where you find yourself 

when you struggle to close your eyes,

tempting a dream,

    humming epitaphs to the drumming

of marching soles

that teach you heel-to-toe, minute-to-minute,

passing-I-shall-cheat.

It’s in the way you stop.

Reviews

[~]

I may be waaaay off, but this poem reminds me of a soldier and who he is now. I liked the division and the breaking of the format. The first one was a bit more slow pace and tamed whereas the second one more intricate. The imagery of the marching is vivid. I can hear it clearly.

[Mac]

Close. It is about a concentration camp victim during the holocaust. But I appreciate you seeing the split and giving me a different way to look at my writing.

[~]

Ahhhhh.. Okay, now the ending makes sense.