Archives :: James Keane
In Passing
Appeared in the Fall 2004 issue.
So have you wondered lately
where the turtles we buried
have gone to? I have
for some reason. In this timid season
of budding discontent (as memory tries to
skulk away to pettier days, when
concern loomed heavily mainly for my pleasure, my
food and my rent), suddenly I remember:
In summer, the couples strolling by cannot know
that we ourselves could happen by and not know
where the turtles finally, somewhere, settled in a somber
December of coffin brown, cradled by the one stream left to
trickle from the season when the park was leafy wet,
and we screamed each other down. So, light years away, do you
hanker and sway at all for the sunny days,
plinking atop a concrete wall? Or still
consider them – as you cried out then –
“My babies!”? Or did you bury
yourself in the yawning gape of seasons stretched endlessly
relentlessly between us, where others I’ve known have
settled comfortably in crypts of upholstered poison,
leather and chrome? I hope you haven’t decided for yourself to
uncover any last-known graves. If you should
want to, let me save you. Cradle you. Kiss your face again
in a warming cup. Wait till green grass or yellow leaves return to discover
love left for buried with the brown and the stream
and the turtles. Or
forget I ever dug any of this dead stuff up.
View bio information and additional poems published in Half Drunk Muse on the author's main archive page.
Copyright 1999-2012 James Keane.