The DWI
by Barry Green
Under the leaf is a shard, a small piece of broken glass
once part of a cover for a photo that hung on the wall of someone
who lived in blindness for a year after seeing his wife disappear
when he drove his car into a tree.
He can still smell the odor of his breath
on the night that he dozed into the oblivion
of street lights, the crush of steel playing a symphony on his legs
as the song of a scream became his anthem of loss.
When the stars reflect in the shard
he hears the music with its dissonance crashing,
strings of violas and cellos like cats in heat,
a vision behind his eye lids where scars are alive.
The fallen leaves scatter with a wind gust
and uncover bits of frame, a torn corner of the photo
that he burned when he pulled the shard
across his wrist.
His goodbye failed to rise above the clouds
but swirled over the loamy soil where he planted the seeds
that were meant to be his gift to a future,
trees that now bear no fruit.
His perception ceased on the day he found the shard
and the bits of photo and frame,
that joined with him as he slept again
into the oblivion of street lights.
once part of a cover for a photo that hung on the wall of someone
who lived in blindness for a year after seeing his wife disappear
when he drove his car into a tree.
He can still smell the odor of his breath
on the night that he dozed into the oblivion
of street lights, the crush of steel playing a symphony on his legs
as the song of a scream became his anthem of loss.
When the stars reflect in the shard
he hears the music with its dissonance crashing,
strings of violas and cellos like cats in heat,
a vision behind his eye lids where scars are alive.
The fallen leaves scatter with a wind gust
and uncover bits of frame, a torn corner of the photo
that he burned when he pulled the shard
across his wrist.
His goodbye failed to rise above the clouds
but swirled over the loamy soil where he planted the seeds
that were meant to be his gift to a future,
trees that now bear no fruit.
His perception ceased on the day he found the shard
and the bits of photo and frame,
that joined with him as he slept again
into the oblivion of street lights.
Barry Green is retired and lives in Ashland, Virginia, where he writes poems and short fiction and tends a garden and the woods that surround it.