Laying The Bright Words End To End Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

laying the bright words end to end,
could we get out of here and when
the exit's stuffed with snows? the things

you said all summer froze.
moon shot yesterdays piled up on the stoop,
with the milk bottles,

the half thawed cream.

and the dream upon dream is
you, in old newsprint, scuttling
through odd neighborhods,

units, brownstones
of the living and the dead;
looking everywhere for

a thing you said in Spring.
it will disappear on Monday
into the sere scrub

leaving, of all you loved, a single spark;
and in the dark-
the forge of a language

locked and shuttered here
by the hunched bodegas.
and children with their candies skip

where once mute angels stood:
their arms - folded...
the vapor rising near the fire escapes

and you are done with surmising.

oh how will you get up to sing
you ask them but they never know
all that cold awnings, dawnings bring

when what was said
to the cindered wind
keeps dread on the payroll,

mary angela douglas 15 january 2016