Bandages of Fog
Remembering the bandages of fog
That wrapped your neighborhood at night
And left me with a chastened epilogue
To kisses and the hushed delight
Of touching you, I let the day expire,
Regretting nothing, nothing that
We said or did, and if I tell you what
I’m thinking now, you can’t require
An explanation of what I have done
With all the nights since you have gone.
Children play and scream on pummeled sand
And seem to be as innocent
As people want to believe they must be.
Their innocence, asserted and
Unassailable, is sacrament
To pious fools who will not see
Maliciousness unguarded in their eyes.
Love also is cruel, inflicting
Pain beneath benevolent disguise,
Good intentions soon conflicting.
A morning in August, humid and cold,
The seacoast is muffled in haze.
My consciousness is slightly out of phase.
Early my larking sons have rolled
Me out of bed and coaxed me to attend
To what they need and have to say
In earnest on this inauspicious day.
The drifting haze seems to suspend
Our severed lives in limbo, distant from
The plangency of what must come.