Unmarked Grave
        All I want is a single hand, A wounded hand if that is possible.
                                                                                                    —Lorca

Beautiful man, with your brows of broken ashes
and eyes that migrate in winter,

a hollow in your hand
where the moon fell through.

I could have kissed your mouth,
passed an olive with my tongue,
the aftertaste of canaries on our breath.

But the shriek of the little hour
is spent, and there is no road back.

The day it happened
there were no good boys
or dovecots filled with virgins,

just a sun imploding
like a sack of rotten oranges,

the scent of basil
from the grove near your home
and the piano that still waits for you.

No one will remember
the coward who shot you,
but the sheets,

the white sheets you sail on,
coming home.

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Copyright © 2019 Lois P. Jones All rights reserved
from Night Ladder
Glass Lyre Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission