Things That Stay Behind
(A 55)
Things that stay
behind memory's cold coals:
child's slipping skates
clipped with a key,
grandfather's rough-work hand
velvet on cottonpuff cheeks;
the margin of wild
the great lake stole from concrete,
that wish washed blue home where
only gulls screamed;
how suddenly it came, the frayed
squall of your kiss
at high water
washing childhood away.
November 2021
posted for dVerse Poets
Poetics: Ekphrasis, Fay Collins,
a talent taken too soon
Images: Sunset Squalls at Connemara, © Fay Collins Fair Use
Vintage roller skates, Photo by Sam Figueroa via Flickr Creative Commons Fair Use
