In DC Across from Arlington
I walk in my hometown to and from
a business meeting, wanting to weep,
your grave across the river,
and me caught in
such boxes–money, time–
stuck fast
in fast-moving side tracks.
I know the shape of your stone
from seeing others, and, from the diagrams,
what it should say, and I’ve seen
the clipped expanse of grass where
it’s supposed to sit, which my brain folds into
the oblong vista of sky and riverbank seen
from a landing plane, there, just beyond
a runway–
But I walk an asphalt street, walled in by architecture
shaped like faked honeycomb, interlocking
chained links,
while you, my dear, lie
over a bridge I don’t see how I can cross
today.
There are, my memory believes,
winged horses sheathed in bronze
upon that bridge, their nostrils flaring
in full vigor, feathers woven like outstretched
hands–
The street narrows, is sided
by actual houses, faced
with actual brick, and their individuated crumbling
softens the air I walk through, as if it were
your pardon, as if even stone could forgive
when broken down for parts–
And how astonishingly lucky I have been, I think,
to have known such love, without
condition, though I cannot say the thought
makes me more cheerful, that it lifts
me like a flying horse, or sends a current of wind
or river or freedom against my cheeks–
only that it shifts
for a moment
the lids from all known boxes, letting in
sharp corners of fresh blue.
*********************************
Another draftish rather gloomy poem (sorry!) posted for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night. Also, sorry that I have been traveling and quite busy and fear I haven’t been able to return visits from commentators–will try to do this shortly. k.
ManicDDaily 
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