Walking Home
Somehow I knew this would be how it began.
So easy to say, the coral fire of sunset;
the bright hand of a god at the end of the world. You
just have to be there. Try not to picture it.
A lens can’t capture a moment the way
the eye sees. Cliché
And that this stanza would consider
how you pass a finger through a candle’s flame
without burning, or, at most, with a little pain. Trial
and error. Some know better
than to linger long, others come to love
then need, the sting.
Now I can only tell you
how it is I love
the way she often laughs so hard her body heaves
loose the strings. Convulsions in the waves
that reach her feet and beat a jig
no mermaid could dance.
It’s like trying to stand
on the horizon, the corner of a canvas
but this is soon, I can’t see
more than shade at the periphery, how
gears change in the dark, turn
down the sun.
by Neil Flatman
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