Thursday, October 14, 2021

Morning at the Clinic

There will be another summer 
Of bicycle days
And pink-haired ladies
And cicadas ringing your ears
As you lay in the immovable chaise
On a perpetual beach
Near the mystical piers.

There will always be time 
For skimming stones
That echo nonsense,
For boats to go 
To giddy nowhere 
And drinks on balconies 
That last as long as the days.

There will always be boys
To fight off jellyfish with sticks
And girls who travel everywhere
On skates.

These things will not go away
Despite the dessicated vines
And warty pumpkins,
The calling from the other side
To pay the lost attention
Never satisfied
With grief and atonement,

For somewhere roots
Take hold already of the stones,
Impossible flowers
Start their inevitable course.

The dormant days
Become much less a warning,
More soft a curse,
Yet they hold 
In arid arrangements 
What old moments
Failed to catch:

The frisbee offered to the sea,
The lights at the end of midnight journeys,
The girl who stared at you all day.