The Wisteria Of Twilight
by Akeith Walters
Autumn,
buckled by the east Texas wind,
stomps its boots around the loose roots of your house,
porch-pacing
and push-peering through slump-back screens
trying to get in.
Twilight’s buttered edge
smears a greasy shade across slices of time-bleached boards.
I sit on bowed steps
pulling your worn sweater closer
and inhale the smell of talc that lingers in the threads
the way your ghost lingers near the threshold of the door.
An exhale from my cigarette drifts to lift and caress your face.
I wish the pale smoke was my hand instead,
at least one last time,
but you can not be touched anymore.
You wait, wearing the outline of a housedress,
a grey shadow against grey shadows
that does not billow in the coarse breeze
while a silent smile catches your lips
in a glance overhead at the dance of yellow sweet gums leaves.
There, the early moonlight perches
to watch me sip from a cup of ice
melting in bourbon,
that mother’s milk for an old man
whose beady eyes reflect the way one day,
like one season,
or even one life,
Gyroscope Review 2!