While the Backwoods Burned
       

Stories? I prefer what fits in two-or-three words, like not being scared.
Today nothing rhymes.

And the moon is pulling faces from the bottom of a coffee cup. Yesterday,
hearts thumped, then curdled, on the saucer.

Someone like you came around, friends say, loafed in front of Mom's house,
burned an extra cigarette at the seafront, just like that summer —
the smell of flaming tires, your waist in worn denim, my pinky hooked
around the belt loop, your palm under the burnt orange of my shirt, —
my dad's old shirt.

Those swallows that perched near the sea — they still come around.
Remember the dock, the city on the horizon? Knees going loose at 5 a.m.
who stared the longest?

Don't pretend we had to move on. Listen. Swallows' songs linger. Their calls
are shorter. Simple as this.

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Copyright © 2017 Andrea Jurjevic All rights reserved
from Small Crimes
Anhinga Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission