A Late Fall Day

My past is here, a heap of shards, and, on
A day like this, so gray and cold and
Claustrophobic, I can sit and sort through
Them. I find a walk to second grade
In sloppy snow. The streets are black,
And little rivers run along their sides.
I see my feet in them. A sunny day
Sometime in summer, laying on a
Towel on a rock above a frigid
Stream. I shiver, freshly out of it.
My father's on the other bank. My
Sister's in an inner tube. My guinea
Pig is dead. The neighbor's dog
Came in and killed it in my room.
My own dog at my side, I slip off
To the forest after school, alone,
To sit inside my secret clearing,
Gazing upward, through the
Trees. Cigars inside my best
Friend's tent, and puns and
Word play through the night.
The long, steep walk up Denny
Street to find the woman who
Had gone. The chunk of hash
And Beach Boys records, food
Stamp splendor, on my own
Again. The motorcycle wreck;
No, not the wreck, the next three
Weeks, immobile in a hospital.
The woman who became my wife
Beside me on the fire stairs. The first
Time that my daughter cried from
Sorrow. Sitting at a desk, inside
A suit, and writing what the markets
Did, and here, the sharpest shard
Of all, another searing sunny day
With me beside a swimming pool,
The woman I loved then, the one
I'm trying hard to cease to love,
Afloat nearby, and telling me how
She expects her life to be. In short,
I have a past. I have a pile of pasts,
But none of them can be retrieved
To comfort me. I'd trade the lot
To gain the future I don't seem to have.



Poetry by Lawrence Beck The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 70 times
Written on 2015-12-02 at 13:32

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