Sunday, February 6, 2022

poem

 Three Chances

I’m incapable of forgiving anyone twice.

What did you expect?

The everlasting Christ?

My grace is the avoidance of strife


And so my mind vibrates between

A vague idiotic contentment

And the certainty that I’m

Making the biggest mistake of my life.


A father can leave once.

He can flood the earth with deluge

But he has to come back and

Arch an rainbow for an obdurate son.


He can't do it again, though.

It’s that second departure,

That buggers everything up.

Only one son ever claimed infinite mercy.


I’m too deep in my own shit,

Scrambling around, making amends

For a litany of predictable failures and

Unnecessary emotional contractures


To even notice the familiar old man

Kneeling in penitent supplication

On the cracked driveway out front,

Quietly pleading for yet another chance.


He's not really there, though,

It's all just a dream.

But I check all the time.

I'm watching from the window now.


2/5/22

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