Psalm 151: Or, of broken women and a host of drug-addicted men

I don’t watch zombie shows but know something about what

emerges from thy dank wood in the boonies, Lord –

have as need be hid behind equal trees,

backing and circling ever outward, dodging

hands and cool blank eyes, upward yes

into the air, “free” of it all, now, over there.

 

But you, wide and ghostly, neither leave nor solve

but hang, steady as the mist, as drops on ferns,

spores of the underside, your heart

rotting out the log. Till when? – we change?

Your breath is gone, but hold it still.

For we’ll not, ever, no matter what we’ve got,

(hell if we will)

change.

The Missed Tackle

How can all your life compress to a single moment

and all of it be air after all, you perfectly placed by your miss

to see every second of the consequence, your rival

(who you’d have dropped every other time

with ease) now galloping free, strutting in fact,

into the end zone with the prize –

all his life now made

in that one second

that was once

yours.