by Alan O鈥橩eeffe
2009
You always threatened to make me pick stones.
I always refused. Why do we have to move stones from one place to another?
But of course, I end up fumbling through the citrus soil.
My gift to you? My sodden arms.
Standing in the unsweet grass.
Our soundtrack the birds and the never correctly tuned radio.
My gaze drifts, as always, to the far-off horizon.
You call.
You鈥檙e tumbling down.
A fall I suppose.
You鈥檙e mumbling now.
What? Help you stand? Ok.
Young eyes lost. Your eyes knowing.
Stroking the bitter sweat off your wrinkling forehead,
you refuse to rest. You refuse to tell me why.
Don鈥檛 go. Don鈥檛 go. What time is it?
I look at your watch. A quarter to six.
Others arrive. They know. They know.
They take you from the crumbling earth,
your gift to me? Your wristwatch and regret.
2016
You鈥檙e a marble tombstone, collapsed on trodden earth.
I crown you with a wreathe of black laurel.
It鈥檚 stark and ironic. Weather beaten and grimy.
Too dark! It鈥檚 too dark!
It drains your pure nobility like a cancerous cell.
Bleach. Chlorous. Chemo.
I鈥檒l scrub the disease, the moss away.
You would tell me to leave it,
age has done its worst.
I reach and struggle, I鈥檓 not Atlas.
I grasp and grip your wristwatch.
I pull you from the soil again.
It鈥檚 just another fall, I have no regret.
Quarryman
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