Knick-Knacks
 
Looking around the house-space
where once we shared dreams
and other ghosts of memories now gone
one or two items pique
my curiosity darkly
 
Are they mementos
of our glorious past
once so vibrantly alive
 
Or, have you stolen moments
of your times with him
like a virus to toxify from within
our former hallowed space
 
For example, did you pluck
the fat pine-cone from some pine-matted place
lain on with him gazing skyward through pine-green haze
 
I know we did not
 
It puckishly plops itself
in the middle of the guest toilet top
 
Upstairs is the small, delicate, perfectly shaped
conch shell on your bedroom bureau
 
Was it from one of our many
splendid jaunts to the shining sea
 
Or, did you, or him, or both of you soul-locked
espy it on Montauk Beach while resting up
for more love in the cheap motel
 
Such musings
I need not dwell upon
 
So, with quiet desperation
I will deepen a hardened
closing of my heart
bricking it block
by slamming block
with claymores of the mind
 
                              Fall, 1994
                              Islip, NY

 

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