~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Josh Mahler

The Last Goodbye

Somewhere off the main road

where light struggles to break thru,

dirt and leaves and the abundant

trees rise up against the sky,

restless clouds that vanish when

they want, nothing I had not seen.

The leaves gather in little piles,

curled like dead spiders. In the pale

moonlight before I left home,

they were conductors of sound,

energy, evidence of the sun

shifting thru time, igniting guilt

for all the lies I failed to confess,

denied and buried, begging for

another chance at love.

I move on and hold my breath,

night becoming a disguise

I use to hide from my former self.

The birds assess my character,

circling branches, hesitant

to settle. Routines must be kept,

memory pressed to my thumb

like a wound I would share

with a blood brother newly found.

I waste time my own way,

write poems that end with death.

I accept charity for my lips,

a song on my tongue, a weight

on my chest, a blind eye that yearns

for the precise nature of sleep.

Josh Mahler lives and writes in Virginia. His poems appear in Tar River Poetry, South Dakota Review, The Louisville Review, The Adirondack Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Miracle Monocle, Puerto del Sol, The Southern Poetry Anthology from Texas Review Press, and elsewhere.