Tender New Fragile Feeling
Of a hollow bone
Broken
But belonging to
The vessel a few weeks
downstream from
the sudden
Shocking impact,
Waterfall itself.
We Were Water
falling
Failed flying lessons
Forced to be birds
Sin wings.
No warning,
And the surprise
Uncalled for.
Why expect a warning?
Afterwards we searched
For the warning,
The visions sent back,
Upstream,
An impossibility.
I pour myself into the maw
Presented, dark and gaping,
By the circumstances
Surrounding my family
I give to them one quarter of the
Bandaids I bought at our
graham-cracker rural Walmart
I bring to them the friends I made in
Colombia, and the Chilean teachers too
We feed them Dutch-oven meat and potatoes
I drive the canyon, inventing errands for myself so I can
Fill a cart at Costco
And buy my parents a month or two
Family, see what good I have brought you
Enjoy this quality I have dragged back
Like a sack of golden potatoes
Marking a trail in the dust behind me.
