strangers,
we shared a bench, stories  
while I watched my grandsons play
he gazed at the twirling leaves
an autumnal symphony
ascending        

in one day it will be November  
he proclaimed, and one ancient “all saints day”
he had reported for induction into a congregation,
one he would never forget    

I had been in the same flock  
though seasons later and what my eyes
had seen had long since been tucked away
behind wedding marches, my children clawing
their way into the brave new world, and
those boys now frolicking before me

I do not know what he saw  
or what things he still carried  
to the battlefield of today    

but he never blinked at passers by  
and when the sun would break the clouded sky  
he would pause mid sentence, mid breath
to ask what I could never answer    

where did the flowers go,
when had the trees shed their leaves
and why was I still staring at lads in play
this day, All Hallows Eve, and would we
all be here tomorrow?

a letter came from Ukraine
tailing the newspapers' grey accounts
faster than the cloud of fallout

there were three smudges
from a child's digits, between the stamp
and my address

prints of proof you were there,
eating the Hershey’s I sent, though
your mother scrawled my name
and safe, numbered place I live,
a planet away  

the letter yet sits
on my desk, quiet, perhaps
waiting to be opened

I planned to surprise you
in your sluggish summer, with a visit,
and American Girl dolls

but April lasted forever  
for you, who happened to be walking
close to the melting kiln, looking
for spring’s first buds
on a Saturday morn

I see the barrel at the temple
feel the nickel sized circle on the skin
hear the loud last report
after the trigger pulled

daily, this scene scrolls in the head
a secret, e pluribus unum,  one
no other players read
in their scripts

I don't write theirs, only
mine, and they have their own
clandestine plans, their own
scenes at the edge of the
abyss

sometimes, I see them
fall, screaming, or silent
until they land among the other
bones

I don't know, I will never
see that place with my eyes
for I lack the courage to jump
or squeeze the trigger

no
I will find a way to sleep
and never wake up, let others wonder what lines
I read in my final hours hiding from the sun,
or why I chose pills and potions
instead of the gun

I love this poem, but it is going to break my heart.  For

I wanted life for my Love.  There were such beautiful things about him.
Yet, the demons in him sought his death in ways so cruel.

He was Man who loved family, friends, and thrilled to living life within
Brief moments; when the ugly moments waned or his demons tired out.

The distruction, which we have made will drive us to our own, I've seen.
If I were a brain surgeon I would have gone in and exspunged the parts

That slowly ate at your heart, my Love, my always Love.

when he was 84, he rarely recalled
the Great War, though he left a finger somewhere
in French soil, and on deep sleep nights,
few and far between, it would call him
a spectral image of  gas dead faces
drifting through like sallow clouds
in the charcoal sky

his nephew was the only one left
to fish these green waters, to court the steady
trout that he too saw in his dreams--all the others,
even his own sons, marching  in the concrete squares
of the cities, visiting now and then like peddlers
hawking wares he could not understand...
soccer games and mutual funds
gourmet feasts at eateries
with cryptic names

the lake was still the same
the  loons chatting, the waves lapping
but without his Helen, the fish he caught
were usually granted reprieve, saved from
his sharp gutting blade, her sizzling skillet,
and without her beside him under her ancient quilts,
the nights were not longer, for grief, he knew,
did not stretch time, but only
made its circle smaller

was a sun sated Saturday
when the nephew had honey do's as good excuses
and the old man was left alone, sitting by a black rotary phone,
waiting for one of his old nine digits to dial the new nine and two ones,
it is what they all would have expected, a cry for help, a long mute ambulance ride, them seeing him helpless with hoses and wires, delaying the funeral pyres, as was the custom in this post teen century

instead, though he felt the anvil on his chest,
and sweat drenched his JC Penney work shirt,
he moved not his feeble fingers to the phone, but his fated feet
to the lake, once only a long a hop from the porch, now a mammoth journey, ten, twelve Sisyphus steps downhill--when he reached the waters edge, the fowl called him casually, their slow song on the currents,
and he sat in the fresh grass, watching the painted blue sky
he saw the fins of those he had set free, hoping
that would count for something
when he curled in fetal repose,
and closed his eyes
by this lonely lake

For both partners, in a protracted dance, out of step, for long time,
it was creativity, at the best in the destructive mode,they are well versed,
like in a music record, cacophonous,their marital discord did manifest,
was made to look,an art form, instillation like, with many possibilities.

cyclones of russet leaves  
doing devilish dances in her yard
while she read, sipped chamomile,
and listened to the cat’s warm hum by her feet,  
the neighbor’s Harley on her street    

the default ring tone
she never changed, interrupted her mid paragraph,
between the writer’s deft description of a noisy bar,  
and an anonymous couple walking to the car  
to find something they lost
long before that night    

the words that came
when she answered became part
of her own novel, lines scribed in a book
she would carry with her forever,
words she read over and over
as she ran to the car,
“your husband is in the ER”
“your husband is in the ER”  
“your husband…”  

he had gone for cat food,
asparagus, and likely some beer,
or Chablis if he remembered they were having
chicken Milan that very night    
and he did, because the bottle  
was yet on the floor board
of his Honda Accord, after…    

two officers met her
at the sliding ER door  
and the eyes of one, puffy with compassion
required they say no more than her name
this also now written in her own book
since half of it was his  
half, his

his parents arrived
at 2:56 AM the next day
having been entombed in a silver blue buzzing tube
two hours late from JFK--first class only meant more
mournful space around them  
they could not fill      

her own mother
handled all the arrangements, being a master at such  
having buried her father, the last pilot downed
in that crazy Asian war, and putting her older brother  
in the ground when white blood cancer
took him before he made it
to double digits  

services, closed casket,
were on a thick Thursday,
delayed a day while they
waited for their priest to return
from his own mother’s wake
in some other world  

all friends and family
gone by Saturday, leaving her to listen
for the cat’s hum (but he was hiding)
the neighbor’s roaring machine  
and more ring tones, more sound  
that would too become indelible lines
in her timeless tome, that began
on a windy Sunday

her husband
was not named Schrödinger  
though many days they did not know
if the cat was dead or alive  

now and then  
an offering, usually a small sparrow,
was found on the porch, and she complained
not once of mischievous mice  

from her kitchen window,
hunched over a ***, or mixing lemonade,
she would spot the black and white creature,
(who never was given a name, not even by three farm sons)  
stalking imagined prey across the yard,  
under the swing set, or in the corner  
by the white picket fence    

she could remember the day  
the neighbor brought two kittens,
asking her to choose--it was snowing lightly
she chose the smaller of the two  
the civil thing to do

she rarely saw
when it lapped up the milk she left,
or licked clean the plate with sardines  
but she knew it was he, taking a light repast,
a sabbatical from great mysterious hunts
in the green barn, or by the cellar door  

the boys were all in school then,
full of pink color, noise, and often
covered with rich dirt  

one by one they left…
pneumonia took the youngest
a day when the cat sat, statuesque,
by their black 1940 Ford    

the eldest
disappeared on a Saturday, into a lake
where large mouth bass were plentiful
and the waters clean, until his friends saw him dive
into the depths, not to be seen again before Tuesday,  
when his bloated body decided to come up for air and light  
the same day she saw the cat skitter up the lone oak
in the front yard  

the middle, her most quiet  
said goodbye from the bus depot,
saluting them as he turned to the bus door  
a year to the day before he was shot through the throat
on some horrid hunk of rock named “Iwo Jima”  
the cat was nowhere to be found that day  
but she swore she heard him meowing
all the night after they put her baby
in the silent soil  

her husband got the cancer
and drifted off on a Christmas eve
to some pasture she saw in the snowy sky
when they put him in the ground, the cat  
made no sound, though she saw him
faintly, moving in some faraway  
fallow field, following his own
soundless dreams

A vanishing cloud, ethereal with a heart shaped red blot in the middle
told her without words, "It's time to dissolve, I can't wait anymore,
it's night, my eyes droop I have to sleep, no time is ripe to say goodbye ever
don't grieve, I am not going anywhere, be back here as things you love most
a strain of music wistful in the evening air, a lovely bird streaming blissfully
in cold mountain air, a sad poem that makes a mother cry for a short while
then dry her eyes and smile,or anything you love without any reason obvious,
will you remember me then, when I am in another, mother dear?"

There is a story to be told,
either we should attempt,
together or keep it a secret.
Pain is the glue that joins us,
the story has different narratives
that won't converge, in all places
hence it is less than joyous.

Joys are but a rainbow till evening,
the rains of happiness are sparse,
                           we still are waiting
the drought destroys everything green,
love is a dying stream in between-
ego trips and never ending pain.

Let us tell the story in one voice,
let go the pain of lost choices,
you should be lying on my chest,
sobbing and I must be  consoling softly,
"Honey, don't cry, it's not your fault or mine"
still you are inconsolable in your grief.
              Then you see my eyes are
              two pools flooding in pain.

A strange yellow smile draws a wired look on her face
she tells him in a crude whisper, that a beast stalks her
in her discombobulation, he detects the withering.
a desperate flower sometimes  mysteriously invites
a flower forced to bloom before her time, was her
only in the closed vault inside her chamber is it's secret,
her hands strongly grips him, not letting him leave her
and he could feel the presence of the beast then and there.
Then, little by little her grip becomes cold, lets his hands free
she  slips in to a trance, body gets stiff like a log.

Alone, she collects pebbles
from the sands of seashore
only to throw back each
with all her might, as if
its her revenge;
all of a sudden she stops
throwing them
back on the flat waves,
just to see them leapfrog,
a few times and vanish.

A sandcastle, he was busy
building on damp sand,
laboring alone like a child,
as if it means a lot,
but the spires refuse to
stay up, collapse again and again
against his wish.
it has become a total mess,
irredeemable for him alone,
or even with some help.

Perturbed he looks,
at the very moment-
from somewhere close by,
wind brings the overpowering stench
of rotting sea weeds and dead fish,
that makes them both look up
at once, by chance
and gaze at each other's face
as if they don't
recognize each other,
for a long, long moment.