Though what the waking see is deadly, what the sleeping see is death
—Heraclitus

It's too much, this being aware. Of what remains,
    we build ruins a woman wearing a sundress
meanders through as if she had lived here
    when everything was whole & not so gray
& loved to take her daughter to the park
    & push her as high as either dared go
on the rickety swings, humming, in another tongue,
    Sinatra's "Dancing on the Ceiling"
accompanied by her daughter's laughter,
    imagining the swing as the only way
to get her feet onto the ceiling to dance
    over her sleeping lover. But she can't hum
lively or long enough to be able to step outside
    of this ashen construct that is nothing more
than an awkward metaphor hidden in
    what are and will ever remain lethargic,
untranslatable ruins. All we know of death.

Tweet
Copyright © 2022 George Looney All rights reserved
from Main Street Rag
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission