What I wanted

was for geese to fly north

against ice-wind, rewind

the days, Or perhaps, no,

I wanted them

to hurry south-bound.

Let the sky be vacant again

Unfilled by this migration.

 

While testing the give

and sweetness of oranges

at the market, a lover once

suddenly understood

he did not love me

thus becoming, simply

a man, left holding

an empty basket.

 

This was not that

kind of leaving.

Though, the sky grew dark

with winter. The deep V

formations of geese

had already stretched

past the Iowa borders into

an ocher beckoning of corn.

 

Nor was it like

the bag of oranges

my grandmother brought to appease

the fever which

burned in my limbs

with my father’s death.

Nor was it like the butterfly

which travelled

north in the dead of winter

emerging wing, then wing

from bright fruit, a cure.

 

It was more like morning;

the bowl of oatmeal blossomed on the table

above a steady cradle of floor.

I kissed you in the quiet of your sleep,

as the sky blurred,

was swept, behind thousands of soft,

keening, grey bodies.

No matter how still, nothing

left behind.

 

 

 

 

Photo Source: Thriving Pessimist