Elliot
Canto III
Alien shadow
White Winter world
Tracing lines in my footprints
Words in the snow
Scenery spoiled
By the places I go
“I read what you wrote”
Sugar stirred in her coffee
Cream killing the dark
But not from her eyes
“That’s all behind me”
“Everything’s behind you”
Water the shadows
“Not everything”
The artificial warmth
Keeps me from leaving
This home for the sleepless
Place for the cold
My head hits the table
And boiling black fluid
Flows onto the surface
And under my face
“Elliot!”
“I’m fine”
Tendrils of shadow
Wrap me
In a numbing
Coccoon
“What happened to us?”
“Happening
It’s not over
Not yet”
“Oh, Elliot”
A napkin’s roughness
Protects her soft hand
From my corrosive skin
“It’s been over for a while.”
My furrowed brow surrenders
I sink further down
Pretend all I can
That that there’s no one around
A Life in Poems 