DEP POEM
Embracing Hope
Second chances in September
Septembers are for sinners.
I should know.
Alicia sinned when she made
away with my heart
like a thief in the night.
The Bible has something
to say about a gal like that.
But be it one step ahead
of me than to listen
to God’s whisper
in this living room of indecision.
I thought too much,
barked up the wrong tree,
and forgot how to be me.
It was the ninth night
of autumn before sunrise.
I lifted my head off the pillow
and looked around.
I reached over and smoothed my hand
over where Alicia should be sleeping.
I threw the covers off my body
and stumbled to my feet.
I slipped my feet into slippers
and moved to the window.
I dipped my gaze from the second-story
window to a rippled effect of my life
taking a back seat
to Alicia’s dreams down South.
Alicia shifted her gaze.
I saw her long, dark hair.
But her shades hid her confliction.
Alicia roared her lifted truck’s engine
as though she wanted me to hear
her say goodbye.
White headlights move between
a breeze in the bedroom window.
Alicia’s brake lights flickered
as she shifted to drive.
I heard her tires crunch
gravel and kick up dust
and crisp brown and yellow
leaves as her taillights faded
down the long driveway to the highway.
I knew nothing would change Alicia’s mind,
not a text, a call, or an unwise move.
I struggled at dive bars over last September.
But I’d been doing better, hadn’t I?
I wouldn’t know because she won’t
talk to me about Saint.
After Alicia lost the baby,
I took it out on my body,
and leaked acid pain
through a cold distance.
I’d speak.
She’d shake off my voice.
Alicia’d tell me not to blame her
it was a miscarriage of justice.
It wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t my fault.
Alicia’d tell me this as though I should accept
the loss of Saint.
I’d look away and sip another beer
or smoke a cigarette.
I shook when I recalled holding Saint
before the nurses took her.
I didn’t want Alicia to see me cry.
I went on with life, but misery
squatted in my heart.
I hurt, but more than anything,
I hurt that Alicia wouldn’t be a mother.
The doctors said so.
The brisk morning as I sipped
coffee on the balcony before work
as brown and red leaves danced
to the ground from skeletal hickory trees.
I had it in my head to learn
a thing or two about Alicia
and what I’d missed
in her mind’s eye.
I tripped over mistakes,
but that was back
when I had bloodshot eyes
and a cold, long-neck bottle
of God only knows in my hand.
I called Alicia more than a handful of times.
But the voicemail offended me at first.
Her voicemail told me to get grief
counseling and emotional management,
only then should I leave a message.
I took the steps and tripped before I could walk
on the water of Alicia’s empathy.
I sat in an office once a week
to forgive myself, my father, my pastor,
Alicia, and Saint for leaving so soon.
I forgave them all.
I needed Alicia.
It was a year to the day that she left.
And the time she left, well,
the same truck reversed
into my life.
I peeked through the blinds.
A smile danced in my eyes
as a tear reached my lips.
I moved outside in my underwear.
I told her it wasn’t her fault.
I said we could adopt
and that I was my own worst enemy.
“Who is this? I said.
Alicia cradled a baby. “I guess,” she sniffled, swaying, “God had second thoughts and gifted us with Hope.”
(© 2024 AC)
(Amazon Kindle, Spillwords, The Writers Club)
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