there is the day where
he says he
doesn't love you anymore
there is the afternoon where
my wife bursts into tears
and cannot be consoled
and does it matter that
this man in california has
butchered his family?
not as much as it should
i remember all of the times i
said i'd never leave
and i remember all of the times
i left
and there is a need for
sunlight here
there is a need for silence
broken only by the faraway drone
of a single plane
on some days
i know myself to be happy
and on others i can only pull
all of the shades in the house
and wait
and not every hill is my enemy
and not every empty field
holds the decaying body of
someone's missing daughter
i keep reminding myself
of this
feel the child's screams
expand in the hot sticky air
and i know that somewhere
your husband is with
another woman
i understand the potential
for failure
there is always something
moving just beyond
the point of salvation
it is not
a sickness exactly
but she is crying
i am two hundred miles
away
am walking down
empty hallways and
listening to the silence
push out against the windows
and there is no point in
being sorry for these
things i cannot control but
i am sorry
my father will die
and my son will be born
and i will stand before any mirror
i can find and see only
a stranger
and i have been in love
i have sat in the
coldest room watching the sky
forget the sun and
the phone has refused
to ring
i have tasted
how angry sex can be
and i have begged for more
and she is crying
she is standing
outside a house that is
no longer there
twenty years later
and the air between us is
always filled with smoke
and there is
nothing i can do
this is the one thing
we still agree on
always
on the edge of
this lake
the sun dying and
filtered through
two hundred years of
industrial poison
your mother gone
again
your sister left
with herself
in love with
the idea of love
silent
at the window as we
drive away
and fifteen miles
from home
you ask if this day
will become a
poem
and i tell you
everything will
eventually
my words
too much like a
beggar's prophecy
to make you
smile
- John Sweet