Untitled

Captive by Paul Klee (1940)
oil on burlap

Rain falls

Or not, no matter

Your plans to plant

Remain ideas not executed

Because the Metrolink jumped

The tracks killing Johnny

On his way to your house

That spring afternoon

Was there a downpour?

Flow of traffic

A misnomer this scorching

Summer morning

The coffee hasn’t even

Been consumed.

A scream

Formed someplace

Maybe the Earth’s core

Or inside your bones

Jerk of the brakes

And the coffee’s now

Burning your skin

Along with your mind.

I can’t hear you.

Window up.

Radio blaring.

Thoughts consumed

Mortgage payment

Infidelity

That lost key

And the weird gurgle

In your stomach.

That peace.

That clarity

As if seeing far

Across the ocean

Or from high atop

Some sacred mountain

A time when after love

Satiated, and the circle whole,

When the warm breeze lingers,

Not long enough

That peace was shattered

By words and no words