"recapped" poems
not many days had passed
since you first left
we were too far apart all the time
told myself it was
better this way
because my biggest fears
always traced
your bad lines
walking down the street
i see you across the way
and i try to
try and not to make eye contact
but i cant
resist the memories
locked in your face
so i stare
and for a moment
we get lost in each other
separated by a street
and so much more
you smile
and all the differences
seem to disappear
and i want to run
and be caught by you again
i want to come home
because you were the most
beautiful place i'd ever
made my home
but the cars flash by and
suddenly
you're not standing there
all i see is a trace
of your silhouette
against the cold october air
somehow we
recapped
the past 9 months
in a single moment
and you didn't care enough
to stay
so again
you just walked away
and i was left
standing
surprised
for the millionth time
May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016 at 12:52 PM UTC
Captured at last. My quiverful
did shake your ransom loose—vain price
of novel circumstance, rebounding
up the mudhills of the past,
up mires that swallow shoes and grief
us for a thimbleful of how
it really felt. You dealt your doings'
deal, wound up a scattered reel
of torments: roses on the vine
that fell on thorny wrists to leech
the somedays from your spreading wings.
Bare respite in the hands of kings
who deign to manage what good things
go wrong: one laughed and out went song.
Two stood and shook out lies. Three spoke
and gouged out others' views of yours
as empty summer eyes. Recapped
in major ways to generally fawn,
yet flip a nonsense-script
to hammer bad words home and sire
a signal-damning tome to scratch
ancestors' heads (as we would do
if we could meet them)—Mysteries
to greet them, burdens on the sleeve
of he who dared dig mud: I linger.
What I free will sting or sear
or singe, but noise is what one makes
when stranded on the fringe.
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 11:59 PM UTC
When they let us back into the building
two days later,
it felt like visiting the library of Pompeii.
our world, frozen in a single
unthinkable moment
We all did it
Silently, and instinctively,
we recapped the borrowed pens,
recycled the scrap paper
and reshelved the stray novels
abandoned by our fleeing patrons
We dusted off tables
We checked the bookdrops
We scanned the public spaces
cross-referenced our gut reactions
with a checklist of trauma responses
We took note of the missing books
by the doors, where the blood was -
absence, often the most visible
evidence of tragedy
We took deep breaths
We pushed in chairs
We tied up loose ends
on our plans for next month
We sent emails to tell folks
their classes were cancelled for the week
We gathered
listened and talked
We comforted one another
We went on doing all the small,
important, invisible work we do -
*through our grief,
through our fear,
through our trauma*
- for the people
Apr 5, 2025
Apr 5, 2025 at 9:44 AM UTC