A Tangle - (J. Porter)

A Tangle

You point at two shadows, long in the evening decline and meshed like clouds, crossing out where we end and begin in an awkward and incomplete scene.

Written over and over by Shakespeare or Balzac, through centuries we've remained a tangle darkened by an ego, and when you turn your head to whisper about the past, you disappear, eclipsed by my lumbering frame with no definition but the absence of light.

Afraid to let yourself resurface, we slide deeper underneath the two shadows, under tar and gravel and clay – here in the heart's darkness, where no hand can reach out and squeeze another or press itself warmly into well-earned flesh and feel pulse.

But as the sunset quickens, our figures thin back to their solitary states, where each hand idly extends to hold its match in shadow, singing, our love was once an awkward and incomplete scene.

City Deer

city deer

the snapped twig was all it took,
sending the city deer scuttling down the hill
and you called over to see if i'd seen her,
so I walked over to where you were standing,
snapping more twigs with every step;
it was early spring and the ground was covered
in remnants of dead grass and Corona bottles.

we saw the deer cut a path further down
toward the railroad tracks until she disappeared.
the grey clouds sunk over the downtown skyline,
and the garbage reservoir rippled below,
little waves of poison reaching toward the city's center,
and as we stood there on the undeveloped plain
you asked me if i was getting sick of you yet.
how could i not say no?

Original 4/5/11

Revised 6/6/12 by J. Porter