Later Chapters

The shimmer beneath the granite we learned in school
along with how to act cloudlessly, like eagles,
and what prowlers believe. The prince of lamb chops

was just a boy, learning his first things about love
from Sinatra albums, and his serving-men played
a little longer in the salt. The water rippled like taffeta.

We watched a limited edition DVD of our lives
with additional years of sexual fantasies, financial regrets,
political catastrophes, doomed marriages and, just as

June got nasty, the scent of burning leaves and twigs.
Hands emerged from our wishes like flowers. Each
petal seemed to say, "I was free to choose this shape."

But we could neither see nor hear them;
we'd been working too long in the summer
sun, and the animals living behind us needed meat.

Copyright 2006 James Cushing
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