Tonight I Cry You a Song

This December
within this house no wind
blows but the heat pump outside
we have no trees in the yard
save a Japanese maple only
thirty-eight inches high these eight years
some old story in a poetry book
with its ancient begetting
lays me down to snore . . .
but I awaken to night
for we are night owls in this house
I had to make coffee for you
and you are off to work
of a Saturday night, after Friday
working through to dawn
you brought McDonald’s while I
drunk and sleep deprived
tried to listen while you spoke
of your adventures at the hospital
there is no radio, but the internet
brings news, or headlines at least
from places too distant to be real
a war in Ukraine, some action in Palestine
the West Bank is rupt again thanks, Hamas
whatever was bound to happen
in our story did not happen
at least to us in our cubicle
within the matrix . . . I know there are rules
but what rule cannot be broken
by the right colt in the wrong season
this is Kentucky, after all,
and the thoroughbreds rule
from paddock and manger
even as christ-our-lord jockeys
his sheep around New Circle
where perhaps our names change
each exit – what mistakes were made
did not unmake us, though the dog
was lost to breathless cancer and perhaps
a couple we do not know
faces this year with heavy hearts
that by all wrongs should have been
nonexistent.

dmpitchford   12/30/2023