May 8, 2011. 3 short poems

1.

Twenty years your old truck sat
in that barn, waiting
for a job that would never come.

When the scrapper dragged her out
at last into the sun
she was too old to blush, too tired

To beg mercy.

 

2.

For a moment after death
everything freezes:
wine turns to salt
rivers to slate
even the birds
ambassadors of motion
seem as carnations
pinned to the lapel of the sky.

 

3.

How do you know
when a poem is done?

When its name rises
in the candle smoke.

When its shadow moves
across the walls.

When the sorceress waves
her arms and says,

"To do more
would be perilous."

Comments

[barbd]

Amazing and brilliant

[amber]

wow, poem 1 brought me to tears. Amazing.