overcast with a strong chance of pain

Photo: mentalfloss.com

overcast with a strong chance of pain

before your love grew cold
before the chill of apathy
(the whimpering dying flame)
there were those days
of sizzle like moth wings

the trickster took his time
took hold of you
or was it I, eye couldn’t
wouldn’t see the color gray?
the color of a stone cold heart

Today, Mary Kling challenges us to grab a line from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye: Burning the Old Year. This brilliant work offers many opportunities for inspiration. The dVerse doors open wide at 3:00 PM on Tuesday. The line in italics is from Nye’s poem.

My quadrille for Monday’s prompt is here. That fun prompt is open all week.

Gone with a Sigh

Gone with a Sigh

Near-winter dampness invades the room,
infects our space, lingers in the air like
twinning wisps of frigid breath and
smoke from your cigarette.

You cannot speak or won’t.
Perhaps you heard me. Maybe not.
Or did you seal your ears against the sound
of my newfound understanding?

By the ice-etched window, quiet still,
you stand, scratching petroglyphs
with your fingernail, eyes fixed on a quail
huddled in the branches of a juniper.

Remembering how I wept
when first I read those words,
(only a girl, I could not comprehend
an ending without joy) I sigh.

And though you do not say them now—
not my dear, nor brutal acclamation,
silence screams across the room. It’s true,
you do not give a damn.

But unlike Rhett, you stay—
a witness to hope’s dying whisper.
You do not stir the embers struggling
to give warmth. Our fireplace goes cold.

Submitted to One Shot Wednesday: http://onestoppoetry.com/