Attrition of Time
by
Robert H. Dirr Jr.
She embraces the hallowed scent of earth and brine and olive sweat,
And pungent fields of memory, as she deliberates yesterday's drivel and
Tomorrow's tedium to settle for a connection somewhere in between.
The soul and flesh and bones and ghosts of bygone former times and hosts
Leave starkness and respect and more heartache with little to exist for.
I creep between sheets with a belly full of thoughts, contained by a womb
Of silence and loss while she is a phoenix of flowers leaning into her sun
To escape a third world gloom. I contemplate displays of new love shifting
Toward bodily requirements, amid crushed roses and wilted snapshots
And I try to replace unsettled nostalgia with what is here and now and alive.
The scorching sun dissolves to rain then turns to hail and snow and sun again,
Like an ebbing tide, gently robbing us of our spirits, year-by-year and day-by-day.
The waves of time still lap against the sandcastle that lodges our souls
As we take comfort in knowing we have each other to thaw the flaws we confess.
But when the icicles melted and dripped away, it was a sad death all the same.
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