Doubt
In the musing of dead day, facts
churn and the evidence insists;
a shower of ominous signs rain
into the room a hard rock hail.
Chilly happenstance and frozen
words congeal in a block of rigid
proof searing to the touch.
A dagger look, a misshapen
phrase, a chunk of incident,
are recalled and shuffled.
The picture on the mantel fades
to gray, his smile sneers, the eyes
dart off, and now his insentient
nose sniffs derisive, distant.
His flesh is rubbed away,
and malice traces each new
feature. Her fingers recoil
and black eyes retract as
she cowers beneath
a blanket of qualms.
When his steps finally drum
over the front porch, under
the glow of late afternoon sun,
then the lines in the room crisp
again, like paper edges curling
black in fire. The smell of sweat
and mud clomps in with him,
and the wind slams the door shut
behind. His are casual words,
glancing eyes, guileless tones,
a scuffling nonchalance.
The fragments of the picture are
reassembled and reanimated
with frank work-end fatigue
and benign distraction.
She probes her love with
the tip of Thomas’ finger
inside the furrowed
wound of absence.
He is facts and times and amounts.
She dreams, despairs and ecstasies.
He acts and delineates;
she wisps and gathers fogs,
snagged in her own web,
catching nothing or all.
His speech is smooth as liqueur
poured in a deep goblet;
hers gallops, boils and burps.
His breath paces, waltzes
in three-quarter time,
while she sucks in air
with skips and rasps.
He bounds from one smooth stone
to the next in a small stream,
while she trips and freefalls
in the roiling rapids.
The clear water swirls close
to his planted feet and
laps back down the wet sand.
She’s swept downstream
and washed out onto rocks,
lands kneeling with
bruises and a gash,
as he waits for her
uncut on the bank.
Published in Underground Window, May 2005