A Madera Morning Poem by Andrew Michaels

she could not save the morning-light
not the cold world made with pain
not for the penny's worth of pride

some other glue-on cloister madera morning
hello breakfast is served with crumbs
and cakes so don't be late for sympathy

and as final as the coffee breathes in
on last breath past ageless weary lungs
another cigarette to sweep aside that

which becomes the morning in its after-glow
heralds in the wishes of the dawn's haunted
chill the depths that love has shown

of worthy circumstance and broken chance
would it greet the morning in her eyes
or as simple as a prayer turned away

to take each step holy as a ghostly shroud
a sign of things to come the many open
wounds still bleeding grief bleeding hope

as fallen still as the tide of a silver moon
another heart that love could not surround
in her emptiness her loving romanticism

her manners how they leak of vanity
as succumb by worldly charms still
lingering on lips she can never claim

could she savor something fleeting as lust
and as a whisper spoken by its thunder
she fell under the once dreaming spell

she so rare to worry over sentiment
thankless for a first-person singularity
the ending 'once because' will sustain the sun

that yearns now less of age than heritage
sheds more than the early risen dawn
as she steps out into the light of day