October / The Breaker & Repairer

my barren arms

my barren branches.

I smoked on the lawn,

you were humming a song

The tongue is fire

it burns my eyebrows.

Curses and blessings

pour out like confessions.

I shouted your name

in the halal grocery,

stress from the evening

converging upon me.

Please take the chisel,

now, take the mallet.

The image envisioned,

in need of revision.

And several times I awake each night

with palpable terror for the ghosts in the stairwell.

Then my mind returns for a while

to the Lago d'iseo with a comfort indepreciable.

The crisp autumn air,

the memory woken.

The joy and the pain

wore the same face.

All of these colors,

these symbols of passing:

the scent on the breeze,

the fall of the leaves.

And we wonder at the mystery

like a couple of eastern orthodox missionaries.

Still several times I awake each night

with palpable terror for the ghosts in the stairwell

for the grief and its bearers

for the truth's dark declarer

for the trial and the error

for the chain and its wearer

for the lover and the sharer

the poison and preparer

the breaker and repairer