Words In Absentia

A Poem by John F

Sorry, I can’t write
Sad words for you today.

It would be like a drunk man
Trying to shoot an apple
Off the head of a child
Who can’t keep still.

For now I am happy
To have no arrows
To pull from my tired quiver.

Earlier I thought to write
About the white ribbons
Caught up in the tree
Outside my room.

About how the ribbons
We’re like my soul’s distress,
And the wind was you
Moving through me.

But for today,
I don’t believe in magic.

Today the universe
Is all unhappy coincidence
And blinding accident.

Most days I choose to believe
That nothing happens unless
We will it to happen.

But not today.

Today I believe that our wills
Cannot possibly affect
External forces.

That god plays cut-ups
With our lives,
And leaves us all
Thoroughly diminished.