Dance Azteca

No matter how hard you try
you can't bring the eclipse back.  Listen--
yesterday morning
there was a grackle, a starling
and a cardinal perched on the silver
maple and I was on the porch
talking again, the same old
game, the sun where it should be
the birds taking it in.

Out of respect for the forlorn
you go on, fully expecting
thunder, some kind of light saving
plasma to effect renewal,
a change in the weather that we used to call
happiness.  But what was once happiness
is a now a bitter river meandering

past you every night from the darkest
zones of the heart.  It knows a million

imps and lions onshore & when the lights flicker

it’s only swamp water
darting in your ear.  In my space

the shadows never-the-less
increase.  Time empties
like a bottle.  Over here, in someone's
room, the broom is shedding its secrets
into the fireplace.   What you call
goodwill is spilled upon the road.