Sometimes

My nephew, a contemporary in age, was killed in a car accident when I was a teenager. It was the first time I really faced death up close. It was also the first, and only time, I experienced some form of telepathic communication. I knew the instant the wr

Sometimes,

in corners of hot August afternoons,

old summer shadows slide

across the backs of my hands,

lay down quiet furrows

among loitering thoughts,

their touch, their lingering,

acrid.

 

Sixteen shadows,

once unstained with lavender wailing,

too cliche-perfect,

whisper among loose bones

whose rattle sets off exploding tires,

screech of sliding metal,

sudden silence.

 

Shadows grown brown with premature mortality,

rolling over and over, leaking

red,

with no one attending the loss,

still drape the current day with crepe.