poems

the long walk home to omelas

2022 · Poetry

                at face a crisp, astonishing hallelujah
                the tear of a plastic packet that's how
                - from under, out - the sky's bough throws wide
                that daily, sclerotic tremble breaks loose
                the silhouette's answer, gasping for
                how it shook through, to the course of
                all these endless decisions we've tried to make
            

                i want to / i want that / beg me / we'll go in,
                in a minute if that's really what i wish
                you were there (i, here) only
                'there's no going back' only, o interjector
                only, o naïve half thing, you wish but
                really you can always go home again
            

                the founders, too, were homeless
                when first they struck upon
                the girl who would be king
                in whose soil were reflected
                the cities and rivers of memory
                what's spare in the unfocus
            

                'you'll know what you know
                and you'll always' besides
                the lapping, insect dread
                the legacy that's no one else's
                that spans the night like a sun-
                lit ocean in a sliver of mirror
                it doesn't call but it is a light
            