Port Comfort

the street lamp ember
burning after sunrise
my father's cheap, broken boots
by the back door
music in a language I will never learn
and love all the more because of this
black iron skillets
and a jar of sourwood honey on the table
fingerless wool gloves
to write to you in winter of
scratchy tweed overcoats
and the green scent of cellars

long sunday mornings stretching
the entire yoke of the day
blood-orange sunsets
peeling flakes of red paint off a rickety
wrought iron fire-escape
a diner still serving coffee
in those porcelain mugs
with endless free refills
all the things I buy
but do not need
stepping into someone else's high
or catching distant echo threads
of Redemption Song carried
from a far-away room

faith in the certainty of change
doubt in cynicism
scars like paragraphs along my skin
that have no story
cashiers who look you in the eye
customers who return the gesture
letting people run with flattering
but incorrect assumptions of your age
bad handwriting in a good love letter
and things I can't explain away
the way a kiss tastes
an hour after the one who gave it
has gone
country roads named for
the first farmers who stamped
and carved them into the land
sleeping on a balled up jacket
on a foreign stretch of beach

knowing
calloused hands
alone will
rock the boat
but never let it sink
 

Reviews

[Suzanne Sherif]

This is really beautiful! The images are very strong. You really took us there. It has a nice feeling of nostalgia and homecoming to it. Well done!