Until the sun crashes to stone, until air draws back
from the mountain ridge over the washed-out
rhododendron. There is always another kind
of cloud and rain, solace in another sense.
Though the breath I embrace stays the same
one voice, and silence. The paper noting
my father’s last address impels me to drive past
the lake-less dump of landfills heavier than
the dead. This road hisses no one is innocent.
I’d confess guilt if there were no willows
bowing to each deep, green sigh they weep
at water. I’ve cursed the liquor my father blesses.
The magic moons of our eyes drift naked,
not condemned, as if gazing upon a shore.
All my life, I’ve walked that shore by the sea.
Hum its horizon, a chance summit, the slim
jitterbug blues of our landscape. What I miss
in the light departs with the leaves. Runaway distance.
Even the stone beads into sweat inside us
like breath in sleep made parallel by the flight
of dreamers traveling outside our window.
Phillip Shabazz has previous publication credits in journals include, Across the Margin, Fine Lines, Galway Review, Hamilton Stone Review, Obsidian, and Louisville Review.