let this be the last chance for choosing
there are no choices left.
birds freely enter my house
circle the ceiling
searching, never finding sunlight.
it is midnight
my home is a cave
made from feathers.
life can execute us slowly
knife slashing at our hearts
blood coloring treeless sidewalks.
and death patiently follows us
waiting to its tap on our shoulder
to consider our reaction
to read what we have written
to approve who we have met
to mock how we suffer being forsaken.
still, there is time,
even after clear eyes get Monday,
barely enough time.
and the remaining choice
cannot be clearer
as offering flowers at a stranger’s funeral
somebody else’s suicide.
to choose
how to lose again
or dance inside the numbing rain
of this merciless cycle.
better to be led on a faraway journey
to fight in a war
without learning to kill.
better to drink from other fountains
to silence the search
among the ashes,
love’s unforgiving cinders.
Bisbee
Summer, 1980