A Trial Separation on Trial
I’m still not clear on how it happened.
Or even where.
Sure, there’s people not happy about it
but their ranks have thinned over the years.
What’s that you say?
Sorry, I can’t hear.
My ear’s in mothballs.
And please don’t scream.
You’ll wake the baby.
Of course, there is no baby.
No mother either.
I’m so alone, I could die in my pajamas,
staring into the fog of death, mistaking it for sleep.
That’s me.
Always on the cusp of life and death.
A study in Hermeneutics and predestination.
Cross my o’s, dot my t’s,
before truth and method get here.
And suddenly a phone call from out of the blue
rings like smoke spirals rising from a cigarette
Wrong number? Forgiveness?
Forgiveness but still a wrong number?
Who can bear these oblivious distances,
people standing in their bright tropical garb
while I am huddled up in the chill off my own body?
It is she, says the voice.
It is she but without the urgency.
She sounds calm as if nothing every happened.
But everything’s happened.
If not, why am I in such
advanced stages of myself?
About the Poet
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in New Plains Review, Big Muddy and Spindrift with work upcoming in South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, Sanskrit and Louisiana Literature.