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Poetry by Ryan G. Van Cleave
Watching Their Shadows Lengthen, Two Hawks on
a Barbed Wire Fence
Nothing endures longer in the mind
than the echo of what we might have been.
--Timothy Liu, ³Strange Music²
Summer is losing shape. The vases
throughout the house are empty,
the windows shut, shuttered. Me
on the porch in a hand-me-down
rocker my grandfather fashioned
from old sailboat planks, the boat
his wife went over the side of
one New Year¹s night. Purposely,
we suspect. Unable to laugh, I try
to work the cold from my wrists,
a cigar unlit in my mouth; I watch
these hawks watch me, a patient
duel under the slow burn of stars.
A little blue smoke in the distance.
Chimney exhaust. Charring pine logs.
I shut my eyes and pretend to nod off.
Like every ménage-a-trois, someone
ultimately has to call it quits.
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