Colored By Oil Poem by Eric Cockrell

your wing has healed;
the door to the cage
is open.

we go on walking
as if the war never happened;
the line of dead bodies
are just roses that bloomed.

and now are gone.

if love is a cross,
then the nails are twisted.
those that run at the first sign
of gunfire never really lived.

day by day prayers,
folding clothes and washing dishes.
it's hard to think
beyond each nickel and dime.

hard to cross bridges
we cant even get to.
it's hard to be violent
when your heart is gentle.

is this then love?

or are we ghosts
in the land of the living?
letters to Jesus, a cat's litter box,
a puddle of rainwater.
colored by oil!