Take Away

Take Away

 

Then, curiously – one day – it was all over.

If you had looked over your shoulder

you could have prepped as it came cold calling

to wash everything with clean, filtered water.

You were always something of a talker,

darning most intricate cross-stitch samplers,

tripping gambols from corners of red or blue,

calling the MoFos out - who hadn’t a clue

about things you knew they ought to do

but too late now - should have asked you,

shouldn’t they? Now, only empty space, holes

you never could call black, although, as for that,

the infilled basins are so quiet, your tinnitus

sounds brash across the vast expanse

as if no slung suspension can quite ever link

those words that brought you to the brink,

and your gape suggests you’ve time to think.

Spent so long brewing up, the tea turned bitter,

scant seconds too long is maybe all it takes,

careful not to pull bags out too soon

and yet the string is tangled with the spoon,

squeezed mesh against hot metal pressed

and there’s grit in your throat, on your lips.

Press on, press on, and never quit

those leaves that bottom-out are not forgotten

and yet still they found a way to scrub the crap

from off the pan. And what could have been had?

It curdled, it stank, whispered to any who listened

in twisted smiles as tears glistened,

revolution sister, revolution brother, pustules blister

come the glorious day. But - they took it all away.

Sent packing, never realizing what was lacking

and how you had the others’ backing

to pick up damp kindling in all tomorrow’s hollows.

Listen to cool whistling winds that sing you to sleep,

muse upon how they swallow and never greet.