IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
Salvation falls on deaf ears only, darling—
“If either of you sees a stranger
around here, it’s me.”
*
They can’t help dancing the chasm
and when water wins, dance on,
eyes clenched, stinging, gasping,
gauzy dress & necktie drenched—
“Just remember that this isn’t
as black as it appears,” he says,
as sirens arrive.
On his way upstairs he gets caught on
something he’s failed to fix,
ambles straight to the kid sick in bed,
set to prove sometimes
miraculous recovery means
pretending what’s lost
is lost forever—
*
Truly, though, he failed; the people he saved
betrayed him. He suffered, was a fool,
got trapped in love like a hummingbird in amber,
all haunted halls and broken records and
a voice repeating, “the chance of a lifetime!”
& then he says, NEVER,
because he must;
she cries, “No!”,
he melts, and then
it’s names, names, names.
*
First man: “Isn’t there any romance in you?
Second man: “There was, but I got rid of it.”
*
The angel has been in the picture
from the very beginning but only now enters the life,
provides the nightmare
of not having been there for any of it,
of history stripped to its imprint,
And when the bones he used to hold
don’t know him,
when “What else are you?”
seems as good a prayer as any,
not, “I want to live” but “I want to live again”,
unlatches totems known,
a little blood at the corner,
remainders of rose,
some damage done,
one will whittling a world wherein
this kind of thing can happen
no matter what the rich believe,
&Love lines every threshold
if you’ll let it & the newborn king
is just a basket full of second chances,
here to show money means nothing.
*
Old friends, we brought bread and salt.
There’s no reason to wait.
First we’ll save life as we know it,
then sing.
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