Thrown
Out
Helen
Losse
for
Alice
How
many times has the wind sung
new
verses to our old, familiar choruses;
we
have seen only the clouds
and
misread the signs?
We
seek peace in a mirror. And looking,
when
we should have been listening,
missed
prophetic thunder
in
the blackening of trees.
But
new birth accents the possible,
disguised
in the wetness of a soft, cleansing rain.
There
are evergreens already,
birds
singing—low in the brush.
Yet
how many nights
have
we slept on old, cotton sheets,
clinging
to comfortable tintypes,
content
with the smaller of joys?
The
time has come
to
throw out spoiled milk.
***
Helen
Losse’s poetry appears in Mastodon Dentist, Right
Hand Pointing, Adagio Verse Quarterly, The Centrifugal
Eye, Blue Fifth Review, JMWW, The Wild Goose
Poetry Review, and ForPoetry. Her first chapbook, Gathering
the Broken Pieces, is available from FootHills Publishing.
Losse's newly published chapbook, Paper Snowflakes, is
available from Southern Hum Press.
©
Helen Losse