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Unstuck

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Of course it happened

this way – the bed was bought,

the sheets were new, and the fist

bore down like a fireball, blazing

comfort into smoke and then extinction.

Of course the memory lasted

decades, even lifetimes, bulging up through

a normal ecstasy, distorting a regular

hope of moving onward, until all passages were

claimed by that disaster and all offspring were lined

with its inevitable outcome.

 

Of course I never took the haunting as a gift or

a train ride through a desert, though I know that a bonfire

is not the same as that bomb, and my initials

have changed since

that day, as have the ramifications of such violent chaos.

I love beyond the library of other people’s stories,

 

I am not deceived by morsels of paradise promising

a meal or a fridge full of many meals.

Of course it will always hurt and memory remains

a mule on a slow decline, but peace is a whistle

beckoning me into its spell. The hurricane

has lifted and I watch children gather,

forming a community much stronger

than a one-off home.

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Copyright © 2017 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “GloMag” November 2016

http://www.joomag.com/magazine/glomag-november-2016/0326287001479836172

glomagnov16

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Published in “The Galway Review” January 2017

Allison Grayhurst – Three Poems

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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

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