POETRY | THE WITCHING HOUR
A Muse To None
A poem for abandoning
I walk to my seat, a polite waiter comes
rushing with my coffee.
Mel sits across from me and I know
what she will say
and I know, because I know
what she thinks.
I imagine she’ll say I’m the Sun,
she always does.
And I know that her Mother,
Memory,
and her Father, whom we cannot see,
and my mother,
and the lake where we were raised,
oh, I know.
But she cares not for the yew and where it falls,
nor for where the oak grows,
not for the Moon, for she is too full.
And Mel tells me
“I am a mirror for you.”
She is right.
She now looks for my eyes that I hide,
the waiter comes
and I pay with shame for my pride;
so I say
that I will run away, so to speak,
far from all far
from her, from the discontent,
and Mel walks.
I thank the wolfsbane for she has departed,
but I write her once more
that I know what she thinks of the Sun:
it has her soul.
Mel has left so I shine
on the floor.
