Hard To Explain Poem by Bob and Alex Eichen

This Poem by Alexander Eichen is dedicated to his brother, my son, Andrew

a frozen voice interrupted me

i was under the square of smoke stained sky
thumbing the edge of a rusted knife
carving a chess piece by shadowlight

it stopped to chill me, then fluttered by,
dying midair over a gasfire steam
falling like a shot mallard- the tea ran red
ran red, and into me

and where the pot spewed blood that night
the yellowed tiles cracked and fissured
tectonic plates of the empty basement
rocked and revealed us the buried truth;
a wrinkled, once-tanned face beneath the pavement

and bedtime came, though it wasn't night
we dreamed of cloud colored birds
flying enmasse by a broken glass building-
for a moment, it looked like the world was moving
we watched them swim through the naked light
we ate the shadows, and they were filling