The Path Before

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Inside this cup polliwogs drown

for the sake of a child’s curiosity. Following a man

wearing a long maroon robe around his shoulders,

a group walked the dirty morning streets,

pretending inner peace.

I was there, there in the sinking sand, abandoned

to mud and nature. I was there, handing out sandwiches

I couldn’t afford to make, following the one

with the robe, thinking he would save me.

              Save me from the dead fish lodged in my throat,

from the desolation of my eunuch intimacies, save me

from the ulcer that tore apart my insides like a feral cat,

trapped and too far gone to look around.

              Waiting at 4 a.m. to steal away into my cubicle

and watch the dawn break over the park,

              or running with my brother

over the farmland of a mutual friend that frightened us,

who we kept because we had no other, as we sat quietly

on his cast-iron stove, quietly in the danger, not together

as brother and sister should be, but separately wondering,

never holding hands.

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Copyright © 2008 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Juxtaprose Literary Magazine, Volume 1” April 2015

Poem nominated for “Best of the Net” 2015

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