Never felt the Knife Enter
Never saw the enemy:
Over two glasses of Red
Seen in the glint of the screen
Is that me lurking outside
This window?
A voice in the storm drain:
“Izadora Duncan
Had a pretty pumpkin
He fled from her arms
In to the sky’s charms
And she never saw
That bumpkin again.”
Never felt the knife enter:
As she swallowed me back
Couldn’t see paraquat
While covered in her coils
Never saw the power play
As the goal posts moved
Never saw the mannequin display
As the loneliness proved.
Never expected:
The brick through the window
The dog on the porch
The maze in the mind
The stenciled stillness of memory.
She was best friend closer than kin
She was worst enemy
A conspirator in sin.
Again the storm drain speaks:
“When we were teens
We watched submarines
In our dreams
Racing at a pace
Quite slow
We made out and laid out
In a sixty-fourth street row.”
Now sitting by “the Golden Coffee Pot”
After it all ended
And I begin again
I can just flow
In to the friendly Atlantic
Across Arctic avenue
And not care
That the sun smears lipstick
On the earth’s grin.
Joshua Kight 2/21/14