Your hangdog face once said it all like the difference between bulrushes in February and fiddleheads in May. Then the refusal to retreat from anguish—only the fitness of words— when a silent walk over a jagged slate sidewalk seemed right, the cleft seams and forsaken cracks divined by hard compromise, lower slabs yielding unwieldy to the uppers by the guiding hand of some stern Solomon beneath the earth. You stopped for a pair of mourning doves high on a wire and you smiled and I wanted to know what no words could tell me, could tell anyone, about how you met yourself before taking flight.
Taking Flight
Your hangdog face once said it all like the difference between bulrushes in February and fiddleheads in May. Then the refusal to retreat from anguish—only the fitness of words— when a silent walk over a jagged slate sidewalk seemed right, the cleft seams and forsaken cracks divined by hard compromise, lower slabs yielding unwieldy to the uppers by the guiding hand of some stern Solomon beneath the earth. You stopped for a pair of mourning doves high on a wire and you smiled and I wanted to know what no words could tell me, could tell anyone, about how you met yourself before taking flight.