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Fire and more,

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gracefully bobbing

like a floating stone trapped in my throat.

To do something with a sting but with skin

that will not scrap or twist, caught in a door. Choices

get caught and limp back, collapsing in confidence

because of the hum-drum yawn of repercussions.

        Death is anywhere, a man wrapped in a sleeping bag

walking fast through the barely wet streets of almost winter.

You were almost broken. I have seen it, and heaven too,

pregnant with souls, never born, never beginning.

It is the order of lips as they move to recite a dog’s thoughts

or the solid sidewalk, taking and taking.

I know a sigh is a feeble cry. I know the animals are mine

like pressure is, concentrated tight

where vital organs are supposed to break or function.

        It has been a long while since

you watched me and glowed. Broken windshield wipers

collected on my porch remind me of the time you were driving,

days before you died, when your countenance was calm,

and your smile, half formed.

        Many missed dreams, hardly turning,

your eyes were things of crowns and deep earth.

Changed by a shifting conversation, you cracked the horizon.

Edify me in the lizard’s stillness. I will be a tulip in the night,

saturated with this meditation.

 

I have eaten roses, rose up from my father’s sixteen year sleep,

knowing I was loved.

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.Copyright  © 2012 by Allison Grayhurst

amazon.com/author/allisongrayhurst

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First published in “Indiana Voice Journal, Issue 15” October 2015

.http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/2015/10/three-poems-by-allison-grayhurst-yes.html

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com/

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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.

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