Back Through the Storm Door

Back Through the Storm Door



I left the South broken, a busted wing
and a crooked eye. Still, I wake mornings
with the taste of honeysuckle on my tongue.

The phone rings; voices weary with traveling;
wires weighed down with crows and thick heat.
The South, calling me to christen the born or bury
the dead- Lord, I'm still addicted to its touch:

He doesn't have long. If you're
going to come, it better be soon.

In bed hours later, my mind still
taloned to the phone's bad news.

Weed, codeine, scotch. I've ingested enough
fog and brain-ash to black out the moon.
But the crucible of the past is relentless,
grinding behind eyelids. Memories spark
wild along the nerves' telegraph. The lens
focuses backwards and the mind grays decades.

I dream my past a fragmented play, spliced
together with rawhide ties and silk thread.
It grows claws and jumps the stage: a beast
my hands don't know how to tame.

There is no balm for the past's dull ache.
When the blue jay rolls up his song,
the whole damn world spins down on me,
falling back through the door,
I'm broken again.


Indigo Moor

Posted over on Main Street Rag