photoart: sharon auberleby Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz
Beside a marker in the park
a fallen plastic champagne flute, empty
vase of dented brass, a cherub
propped up on her elbows, smiling
at the granite day.
Before the last lamppost
where the winding path divides,
I turn into a nearby woods--
a circle of buckthorn, thicket and oaks
bordered by a river branch,
a place where symbols
are carved on trees,
a sweatshirt once hung upon a cross,
a handgun box jumped in the wind.
I wonder if a sudden parting
...of the water,
a sun ray through the thatch
will tell me where you went
...and why so soon.
But the river flows as always, confusing
the path,, the snowmelt and sticks.
White lichen clings to tree bark
like clues in a treasure hunt.
When I reach the circle's end,
the still-empty glass and the battered vase,
the cherub smiles like a discount statue
...in an outdoor marketplace,
its chiseled eyeballs staring hard as stone.
~ previously published in The Mulberry (Finishing Line Press)
