After All the Lean and Mean Years

After all the lean and mean years
counting dead or dying crows in
Butterscotch and Key Lime pies,
after all the empty wasted seeds of
longing in zigzag patterns of iridescent
partings and partnerships that go
bump into that unfamiliar night,
hobbling with bleeding knees, carrying the
sound of silence like Atlas with
the world on his back or old women,
bent-over and broken
from too many years cleaning
the stables of Hercules;

there comes that aloneness
clutching
at the throat of your sacred fire,
like shadows of saints and sinners,
yellowing
around the edges, frayed and coming
apart at the seams,
rushing, but always 5 minutes too late,
and the last train leaves the station--you
watch it disappear into a pinpoint of
another arrival and all you
hear is an echo of a whistle as it carries on
without you,

you catch your breath as the sound floats
somewhere between your ears as your tears
well, soon drop into a serendipty of sorts,
freeing
your soul from having to go anywhere
at all.