what heaven handed us

this is what heaven handed us
the blood that trickled
down your knee after you
fell down the stairs or the dark star-shaped
scar that remained afterwards,
a memento of morbidity’s
magic, the ash after
the candle burns and melts
to a resinous emptiness,
or perhaps heritage
is only a bitter memory-
a hanging man
who will not surrender himself
to fate’s slippery fingers
but wrestles with the noose
for a series of muffled moments
until his neck snaps
and his life severs
like a dropped call; he sways
from side to side, dangling
like a cat’s toy… silence,
the heritage we will hand
our children, along with the tattered
carcass of a planet
we allowed to languish
in neglect. maybe
heritage is the echo
of a whale’s wail
when a harpoon pierces its side
or the sauce we
never forgot… hunger
a hunger for a language
that lives without words.
we must realize in a way
only the blind can visualize
that before the veil of lies
there is a bed, and on it,
a lady named truth,
an ugly woman who bought,
tied, and shackled life
with the arrogant audacity
of the first weed to sprout
from an otherwise pristine lawn.
watch. she rises,
an ocean of her own design.
the bed creaks. she walks
and her dry bones speak.
traveler, kiss her cankered lips
and the veil will rip.
 
 
 
(Published in The Yellow Chair Review)