You saw your disintegration

In the shrouded reflection of a store window

Already losing custom

And for years prior

Women adjusted hose and children’s grubby faces wiped

In that smeared glass

It held

Decades

Like high cheekbones

Will shore up time in a beautiful face

I saw my eyes fail me

In the encroachment

Of some uninvited color

As if the sun

Greedy for attention

Had left a permanent marker
The doctor

With his accentless voice

And starched finger tips

Probing my retina

For answers like a tarot card reader

Will shuffle and cut her deck

Declared me blemished

Stained by time

Imperfect

Possibly going blind, wrapped in news print

And I laughed

The same laugh my grandma had

When terrible news was delivered

Along with cold dishes and

Empty seats where once our ancestors sat

Filling the roost of our quaking bones

Marking time and Advent

She would raise a thin lipped glass

Of “this n’ that”

To Gods and Monsters

To Plato, Communism and Woody Allen (before we knew we was a paedophile)

There should be a preface to every memory

She said; toasting velvetine shadows

Swilling away the horror

Like a rinsed mouth will always be

More kissable

And come New Year’s Eve

We’ll forget our enemies and join shoulders

Kicking our long legs into space to the chime of twelve

Not yet knowing

What will become if those flung into the future

To forge ahead alone

Unsupported in ancestry

Just the sound of voices

A snatch of tune

The smell of half finished dinner, paused forks suspended in song

Stewing pears over cheap white wine

Her hands red like mine

From scrubbing too hard

That blemish

It won’t come out

So it sinks

Orange streaks of sunlight beneath green orbit

And a stranger in a bar once remarked;

You have gorgeous eyes like they came from the depth of sea

All green and lost

And I think of loss

A stray button, a missed appointment

Maybe I won’t return

To the doctor who found my stigmata

Bleeding like a fish cut on rocks

Into the very bones of earth

See? I don’t anymore, my eyes look inward

In the old days we toasted with pink cut glass

It was all anyone could afford

And I remind my American friends of this

Poverty after the war

A tendency to never feel

Safe

Like city foxes

Scour

Empty streets

For scraps

And squint

At the harsh glare of street lamps

Attracting insects

Bleached yellow

By the piercing quality

Of their intent

17 Replies to “Encroachment”

  1. Such gorgeous lines, my lovely friend. I wish I could convey in proper terms just how much I cherish these (and all the others before)… how they surround my soul and I am changed.

  2. I feel this by mirror image
    An image of color restored
    Surprised by a Rhododendron flower
    Long taken for rather plain and pale
    Suddenly brilliant purple-blue
    The day the first cataract was taken away
    How I wish the news to you
    Went in such direction
    Or can be made to do so.

  3. You’re my friend but what I am writing is not just for that reason.
    You have a true gift a real true gift to reach people through words.
    I know there are some odds against us all but there is a way to get through them.
    You my friend are a true blessings to this world.
    Love you candy, my friend for life

  4. I’m so glad you are my friend we have been for ages and it means the world to me.
    Even when we are not always in touch I feel we are through our spirits.
    Thank you for being there for me during some really hard times. Please know I am equally there for you whenever and if ever you need it. That is what friends are for and I VALUE you.
    Thank you dearest girl xo

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