Two Swords

Feb. 7th, 2011 at 12:49 PM

Two Swords

Crooked in the arm of a deep-throated drumming ferry,

cradled in the chorus of Hudson's water world,

we rock ourselves, a choir of ghostly faces,

in the world between

cities of the fallen and

cities of the forgotten,

we are in the gulls' world.

We weigh dust and blood-stricken faces

battered satchels, torn suits

a mother, caressing a shard of embittered glass, against



the shriek of gulls circling above us, their voices

knives jarring our silence while

the river rocks and soothes,

glistening and sharp at its edges.



We are between

these swords, these scimitars,

we are between

one shore and another,

lulled by whispers of other warm autumn

worlds into a past we know

where nothing has changed and the world is as it was,

and if we rock ourselves to sleep,

two smoky spires rising at our backs

will vanish in the sunshine.

Copyright 2001. Published University of Michigan Portfolio, submitted 2005