Jeremiah

This poem has a house

and a field

and beyond the field

a feral grove of olives

and lemons,

where a woman

once laid a baby on a stone

and wove gas in his hair

wept as it rose

into flames.

Her lover stood

a few feet back

begging a bucket

of water, anything,

but she bound his lips

with a kiss

and took his hand, swallowed

his sorrow in bed.

_

This is a poem more

about rain.

About the sudden gales

that woke from the field

and shook the house

threatened to tear it away.

How the woman would

not wake from sleep

as hale cracked windows

ripped through fence

rattled the back door

with rage. And how

her lover – a man no

older than 40 –fell

on his face

and begged his boy

back from sky.

How the boy

would not come

how sky would

not answer

how light was left

swallowed

in the static of rain.

How a rope

and a rafter

and a chair kicked loose,

brought him

his sweet Jeremiah,  

swaddled in cloth

and still kicking.

(Published in Chiron Review)