Dimly lit dirty paths
littered with candy wrappers
and smoky faces
wind through silenced trees
and rickety thrill machines.
Sweaty bodies cling
to moist drops of air
and I cough from inhaling
cotton excitement.
Exhaust heats this dark alley world
and as my mind wanders
into similar,
familiar,
frightened faces,
I can't help but smile
untitled
We travel like monks on a rail
we grovel like maids in the grove
we love like toads
the speckled light of morning
gives way to the glory
of a god
some way to believe
any way to see
the light
tonight
as she walks with her lover
the lover that isn't me
if she was to show me her cheek
I would seek my soul for a poem
a tale, a word, a whale of idea
to lift her heart and show the part
of me I keep so hidden
the way of my gaze is like the maze
of cornfields in youth
tall and flowing, like stalks of a river
and she and I swim together
afraid, but clinging to the reality of love
that if we fail to swim
we will not drown
we'll be saved by religion
or chance
or a dance
but for now we move along
like tired old monks on a rail
broken boughs
The bough has been broken
I am choking
on a branch
from the tree
that little missy and me
used to sit in
K-i-s-s-I-N-G
it's getting hard
to see
beyond the leaves
for my sight
has given way
to red
red
red
do you know what that means?
The Red?
It means that I'm about as good as dead
because I've been swinging
in a tree
an innocent tree
and since its strength
was not made for sin
I've decided unconsciously
to settle
into dying.
The Fall
The trees died last year.
Some sorta fungus killed 'em.
We used to climb the trees,
my brother, Jakey, an' me.
He'd lead.
I was afraid of heights,
'til then,
when he'd lead me
to the top,
and dare me to jump.
We always decided I'd better not.
Mom would be mad
if I missed suppertime.
The trees died last year.
My brother killed himself today.
Mom's here, with me.
She hasn't stopped crying since noon,
when Dad came in,
angry,
sad,
but sorta cry-laughin',
Jakey's dead, he said.
And the trees I think knew.
They held him.
Poems © 2000 Kim L. Stevens Jr., all rights reserved
