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uutpoetry:

Melancholia

January 11, 2008

Evening swells.
Black soot on the sill.
A melancholia big as an elephant
fills the room. A train goes by.
My insides stand up, like a mushroom on a beach,
a toadstool small and rootless in the sand
that extends forever, older than mountains.

When the rapier of distance pierces muscle
the heart squirts with blood, drowns slowly.

Our love, its sweetness
like a warm stable;
our hands touching like a groom brushing
the mare’s brown coat.
I hold my hand up to shade my eyes
and see blue dragonflies delivering the mail.

A million doors unlock and re-lock every hour
but my heart will remain,
like a park bench
long-suffering of every homeless bum and stray dog
that still loves the smell of morning air.