Metaphor
Two young black men, barefooted,
joke and laugh
in the park near the condos.
From a distance,
they appear to be trying
to walk across something
like a tightrope,
strung between two trees.
One of them jumps up,
gets a foothold,
holds his arms out,
begins to carefully
walk toward his friend;
he teeters, catches himself,
places one foot in front of the other,
sways in the wind.
When I get closer,
I see that,
instead of rope,
they are walking on wide yellow
police caution tape
as they step carefully,
trying to keep their balance.
Requiem for Scott
His parents drove in silence,
parked their car
near the spot where his abandoned truck
had been found.
Once
they carried hope,
fragile and soft,
as weeks became months;
it whispered not to give up
until now –
now that hikers had discovered his remains,
now that fragments had been unearthed
now that the truth had been found in pieces under their feet.
They walked through the forested area
over a pine needle carpet
thick enough to keep a secret
buried for seven months.
They had no answers,
nothing that would explain
how their son, who was also a father,
could leave to meet someone on a hot July afternoon
and never return.
Perhaps it is a bond that is never broken,
a connection between a mother
and her first-born;
perhaps that would explain why,
as she walked in ever widening circles,
eyes looking always down,
she found another bone,
overlooked somehow by all the other investigators –
a rib bone of her son,
a bone she once nourished from her body
as he grew under her own rib
so close to her heart,
so many years ago
when the future held such promise.
Nancy Haskett, a retired educator, lives in Modesto, California. During the pandemic, she has found time to write more poetry, assemble 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, and walk 3-4 miles each day. She recently completed a virtual challenge to walk the 90-mile Hadrian’s Wall and is now working toward the 480 miles of the Camino de Santiago. Her work has appeared in more than 40 publications including the anthology More than Soil, More than Sky; Stanislaus Connections; Penumbra; Homestead Review; Iodine Press; Monterey Poetry Review; Song of the San Joaquin; The Pen Woman; Miller’s Pond and more.
Two young black men, barefooted,
joke and laugh
in the park near the condos.
From a distance,
they appear to be trying
to walk across something
like a tightrope,
strung between two trees.
One of them jumps up,
gets a foothold,
holds his arms out,
begins to carefully
walk toward his friend;
he teeters, catches himself,
places one foot in front of the other,
sways in the wind.
When I get closer,
I see that,
instead of rope,
they are walking on wide yellow
police caution tape
as they step carefully,
trying to keep their balance.
Requiem for Scott
His parents drove in silence,
parked their car
near the spot where his abandoned truck
had been found.
Once
they carried hope,
fragile and soft,
as weeks became months;
it whispered not to give up
until now –
now that hikers had discovered his remains,
now that fragments had been unearthed
now that the truth had been found in pieces under their feet.
They walked through the forested area
over a pine needle carpet
thick enough to keep a secret
buried for seven months.
They had no answers,
nothing that would explain
how their son, who was also a father,
could leave to meet someone on a hot July afternoon
and never return.
Perhaps it is a bond that is never broken,
a connection between a mother
and her first-born;
perhaps that would explain why,
as she walked in ever widening circles,
eyes looking always down,
she found another bone,
overlooked somehow by all the other investigators –
a rib bone of her son,
a bone she once nourished from her body
as he grew under her own rib
so close to her heart,
so many years ago
when the future held such promise.
Nancy Haskett, a retired educator, lives in Modesto, California. During the pandemic, she has found time to write more poetry, assemble 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles, and walk 3-4 miles each day. She recently completed a virtual challenge to walk the 90-mile Hadrian’s Wall and is now working toward the 480 miles of the Camino de Santiago. Her work has appeared in more than 40 publications including the anthology More than Soil, More than Sky; Stanislaus Connections; Penumbra; Homestead Review; Iodine Press; Monterey Poetry Review; Song of the San Joaquin; The Pen Woman; Miller’s Pond and more.
