Marley

Marley

Marley sits alone on the window sill,

His company kept by keepsakes and flowers.

Eyes forever open on perpetual guard,

Glazed, inert and scrutinizing the middle distance with his proud burning buttons.

*

　A curtain’s swish and the play begins once more,

A show in infinite acts to bear his witness

And arrest his thoughts of halcyon days

When the air was ablaze with circles of laughter

And tears of chagrin and naked delight.

*

　But now this bitter, perilous current with its silence and hate

And flailing arms and muted gasps

Of desolate pain and fuming, livid love

Sit easily in this room.

*

　Marley waits for the curtain to close another act,

Here it comes, it’s dark behind and to the fore

And he knows there will be a blessed quiet relief before it begins again.

For Marley is a bear with a thousand yard stare

And he was never dead to begin with …

****