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Detour

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        Bobbing for apples under a raincloud.

Soon what was planted will flourish

and the empty casket under the bridge

will be a nest to weather out winter’s storms.

        I will never know you, not as

a weak-kneed dancer or as a lover,

blurred by idealism. I will be in the dumpyard

with the rest of the dead flowers,

caught off guard by your morning song.

        My shadow rises like a weed into a tree,

simple company for empty days. You are skin and fury,

a shore that is quicksand with many mosquitoes lingering

around. I was stuck on your butcher’s block, smelling of

musky ambition. I was predatorial, though myself, never

a match for your strengthening spikes.

        Honesty is a Sunday summit, punishing to pursue,

dropping undergarments for a glimpse at purity.

        Wings are hallways I have lost track of. Like circus lions

they struggle, beaten, chained, with useless magnificence.

        I flattened my folds for you, spread myself as a net

over what was precious and wild

to work for your children, to maintain the belief

that the back-mirror-reflection would come alive.

        Half way into eternity, building in me

like the scent of salt water.

Another lifetime I may be in motion, with you,

joyfully rolling down hills.

        Today what is natural is inside the cupboard.

I am learning to accept the mice-chewed boxes,

gradually forgiving the distorted shape of these and even other

make-due flaws.

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.Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Fine Flu Journal”

http://fineflu.weebly.com/allison-grayhurst

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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“Allison’s poetic prose is insightful, enwrapping, illuminating and brutally truthful. It probes the nature of the human spirit, relationships, spirituality and God. It is sung as the clearest song is sung within a cathedral by choir. It is whispered as faintly as a heartbroken goodbye. It is alive with the life of a thousand birds in flight within the first glint of morning sun. It is as solemn as the sad-sung ballad of a noble death. Read at your peril. You will never look at this world in quite the same way again. Your eye will instinctively search the sky for eagles and scan the dark earth for the slightest movement of smallest ant, your heart will reach for tall mountains, bathe in the most intimate of passions and in the grain and grit of our earth. Such is Allison Grayhurst. Such is her poetry,”  Eric M. Vogt, poet and author.