Widowmakers

This poem is about separation, divorcing oneself from the notion of a family, bye bye woman and child.

Today I walked out into the driveway.

The blaring sunlight intruded between

                  the        tree           limbs,

their scruffy shadows wagging back and forth

     across the yard.

The    s c a t t e r    of petrified dogshit,

The rAke with the br o ken handle,

      perched against that

                              wry, grinning birch

      with the peeeeeeeeeling skin.

My eyes squint in the sunlight

that passes through    HEAVY,   rocking

                  limbs

       above,

that are the old dead arms of my regrets,

creeeeeaaaaaking       above my head.

             Widowmakers.

Here my toe

   Stubs a janky, pink dollhouse.

Here I pick a faded, plastic

   S T E G O S A U R U S

from the untrimmed grass,

and stand there staring into

the impression it left depressed

amid the tall blades.

I close my eyes. Breathe.

Hope for a second that one of those

boughs above will crack and

come down

                on the soft

                                bend

   of my

   neck.

It doesn't.

I turn back around,

forgetting the mailbox entirely,

struck by the emptiness of this morning:

The children I never had,

The ones of a freshly severed lover

I'll never know again.

Back up the driveway,

Sharp gravel digging bare toes.

Lost in the applauding leaves.

Reviews

[KAOlmsted]

You know it's a good poem when kimmer sheds a tear *laugh* That last line just blew me away, because I could HEAR it, you know? And the old dead arms of my regret--very effective. Your experience, losing the woman and child, is such a universal subject, and yet you always seem to spin it in such a way that the pain seems unique to you; just you. Very well done.

-kimmer

[.]

~ ah... an exquisitely written song of loss...
~ life is so perplexing sometimes...

[Poison Ivy]

wow.... i think this is probably the coolest poem i have read all day. it has such striking detail and enrapturing flow.... very well done