.

Dried Heroism

.

.

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  

.

.

© 1991 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

 

 

First published in “Vita Brevis Poetry Magazine” November 2018

https://vitabrevisliterature.com/poems/dried-heroism-a-poem-by-allison-grayhurst/

.

.

You can listen to the poem by clicking below:

.

.