The Commute
written by: Gavin Haycock
@poetry_pieces
It begins where it ends
incomplete, refracted
broken, separately united
as everything is when time ripens
like an apple’s short journey
sighing in the eye of silence
skin bends with the passing of days
all and nothing in this
eternal, ephemeral, elicited.
Sunday morning
bells ringing
river flowing through the city
day of light without mourning
birds singing
in a bookstore fingers run
along yielding spines
near-forgotten lines
random Neruda
below the surface, uncharted tide
triple X, V and a triumvirate of I together on a page
singular, sentinel, sending us different ways
among worm-turned eaves where
students and those with hours to spare solemnly read
as ash slow falls from a dozen coffee-inhaled cigarettes
do you believe death lives, he wrote
with his book of questions
inside a cherry’s sun
cannot a kiss of spring also kill you he asked
before wondering if ahead
grief carries the flag of your destiny.
In a dream the night before you hung over me
shawl of comfort, sinking through
autumn leaves slow crunch under foot
everyone wondering where the future had gone
you were mid-flight in a distant place
the line cackled and crackled amid disrupted airwaves
as the sun slumped down
beaten on another after noon
you recalled something once felt
noting that what had been made
would last a few days
there was time enough for digesting
that altered acquiescence
the only true thoughts are those
that cannot grasp what it is they mean
sleep before you return, you said
be ready for tomorrow
it ends where it begins.
- Distance - January 21, 2022
- Afloat - August 1, 2020
- Comfort Of Strangers - January 30, 2019
