dread
my best friend at five
lived in a blue house
between the orca-backed hill of my home
and the gating grate of some stranger’s fence
with bear-shaped dogs for filling.
robin’s eggs
on the scuffed concrete,
back then,
were the wildest treasure.
they aren’t a color
you can hold anymore.
my friend said he’d fallen in love
like a cartoon, hearts for eyes,
but i believed in catfish from the creek,
ravens built like gargoyles,
how many pillbugs can curl with the lift of a single stone.
what can you even see
when you say such filmy things?
five years old, all you know is being hit with light and wonder and chewed-up tennis balls,
yet you think you can leave me like that?
those dogs would bark like demons were itching their throats.
i thought today of all the years they have been dead.
6 thoughts on "dread"
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I don’t know if I’ve commented a lot on your poetry over the years, but I recognize your pen name and the poetry has always been so good. Those last two lines have such power, a wonderful closing.
I loved this poem!
I am lingering on these lines:
“… they aren’t a color
you can hold anymore.”
Kevin
The poem within a poem works so well to transport us to that other place. I feel the dread.
Yep there you are making out like a poet with all the answers. It is always fun and enlightening to read your work.
Great poem.