Poetry Post #3 Seeing is a Lost Art Form
We are all blind.
I observe;
You can watch
the lovers at the park
on an unusually chill
winter's day
from noon until sunset,
and never see them at all.
I observe;
They walk side by side
his footprints unusually deep
in the ever-present snow,
hers barely there,
begging a breeze
blow me away
She turns,
and seems to search his eyes.
I think to myself
I have seen this.
She will tell him
'I love you'
Her mouth opens,
the truth clings
to the safety of her lips,
even as her tongue
harshly throws them out into
the swirling abyss.
Her eyes are as cold as the snow in her hair
as she spins on her heel.
He grabs her retreating arm,
sweeps her back into his pleading stare
as words tumble
meaninglessly
never reaching her ears.
I love you
they say
I can change
But she is already gone.
Her arm,
clad in a black wool,
jerks out of his pleading grip.
She runs.
Past the bench,
past the pond,
past hope,
past sight.
He merely stands,
another tree in the landscape
eaten from the inside out
by some awful blight
that has left merely a shell.
...
I watch this with a knowing eye
and a calm demeanor.
I know what he will do next;
I have been the boy
I have been the girl
He will walk home
find solace at the bottom of a box of cheap wine
and move on.
She will throw herself into work.
Sleep won't cross her mind for several days.
She will tell herself it was for the best
...
....
...
I am awakened from my delusion
as I see him calmly turn
and put a foot on the unstable ice
caking the small pond
directly alongside his love's sole set of footprints
I begin to say something
when there is a crack
as sure as a gunshot
and just as deadly
He falls
...
The next day in the paper
their obituaries are side by side.
Lovers reunited.
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