SAW YOU YESTERDAY

SAW YOU YESTERDAY

Saw you yesterday, as if for the first time,
stomping through the rain-soaked gutters
in your killer galoshes,

Making mincemeat of the winter storm,
your heart steeled hard against the madness.

Saw you yesterday in a fit of defiance,
gunning through the stop signs
with a reckless abandon,

As if you weren’t concerned with me,
as if I were a poltergeist or a fading apparition.

Saw you yesterday, drenched with a burning fever,
kneeling on the precipice of a healing waterfall.

Praying for death to snatch you with his sickle,
for Mother Earth to swallow you
within her swollen reaches.

Saw you yesterday, a bloody, war-sick fighter,
trolling the aisles of the hardware store,

With landmines rife across your face,

A shopping cart of razor blades
your mode of transportation.

Saw you yesterday, as if for the first time.

Your eyes they glistened lonely,
devoid of song and dance,

A teardrop on the landscape, a river never cresting.
A one-act play that was cast in gray,
a spirit that was breaking.

-BRUCE POTTS
COPYRIGHT 2008
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED