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Dried Heroism
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The void comes and contains me.
Who picks the last straw
fated to carry the dynamite?
On shore, near a fern tree
I saw an umbrella break
and a worm exposed to the wind’s wet fury.
How I long for more than a nickel’s worth
of comfort in my shoes,
for a spoonful of light in my mouth,
to kiss its translucency and praise midnight
gone.
Shame is not my therapy, but fading
fragile as sanity often is,
wanting a sign from God but finding
cars recklessly racing over speed bumps, rain water
flooding in mid-winter and an empty stomach.
How to dance on this floor of dread, learn
to feed my horses washed seaweed
when all the grass is dead
How to see my future as more
than a tiny creature scurrying helplessly
in the folds of an infant’s hand
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© 1991 by Allison Grayhurst
amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst
First published in “Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine” November 2018
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You can listen to the poem by clicking below:
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