Could Have Been

Copy the long faded nights
into my pages so as not
to lose a lesson.
You wouldn't want all those sighs
to have been for nothing,
would you?

Where is my older sister,
my nanny, my gram?
Why were they never forged in
the masterful furnace at the
center of the world?
They have never taken a breath,
but they could be.
They could have been.

How many painful thoughts
I waste on could have been.
How many uncharted ideas I
sew together, fusing the
past and the present into
one seam, not quite perfect,
not quite clear.

You could have been
dreadlocked into that rustic operation.
You could have been
you rogue pilot,
matching plaid stripes
and your guitar strings.
And most of all,
the big huge you
that looks out from my eyes sometimes,
that shows up in my body
and startles me
with your existence there.
You parasite.

Why does the evening lag so?
calling long patience into
practice with its greying
teal edged buildings
encasing the sun behind.

I call to my door, posing
a great idea of solitude
to it's massive protection.
I will it to open,
I will my clone to walk in,
my son, my bait, my temptation.
I will anything to slam
through that still quiet frame.

I need to feel something.
And you, mysterious cloth washer,
you linger on your stone step,
patiently scrubbing your
husband's dress shirts clean
of yellowing cigarette burns.

At the magic eight ball,
it's life-size overwhelming,
I always wait for chance
to tip its hat in my direction.
After all, I am a lady,
and winter is cruel.

On that steely morning,
when ice has coated carefully tied
sailor's knots, when chips of it
wake the snoring world,
when dew creeps slowly up the
window, making its eerie
patterns as icy spiders threads,
when the last drop of it is stilled,
the finality of this inevitable hour,
hits everyone, and shakes us.

"Summer is over," it whispers.
Brewing unshed tears
with the capable hands of regret.
"Summer skipped you," it whispers,
skeletal fingers closing
for one final grip around
the furthest horizon.

Now, the skin chaps constantly,
and you must keep your winter eyes on.
There's no protection in this fated season,
no help against
what could have been.

The sleep that silences you,
the feathery pillow that
closes you in its mouth,
it is a small comfort,
and you wish for the end
of what could have been,
and the beginning of what is.