04-27-2023, 06:01 AM
The Zone
April inside
the retirement zone:
the days are long and green
cloudy mornings
fragile sun after noon
filled with birdsong
trains passing out past the river.
I’ve been in the zone for 6 years
it’s a place where you’re out of the game,
that’s a pleasure in most ways
until you see the outlines of a fence
or some memory comes to call
like burning the mistresses’ letters
and photo that I’d found
snooping in my father’s car trunk
the day we buried him.
Visitors like this
are endemic to the Zone,
cancelling the pastoral
with a Nazi smirk.
April inside
the retirement zone:
the days are long and green
cloudy mornings
fragile sun after noon
filled with birdsong
trains passing out past the river.
I’ve been in the zone for 6 years
it’s a place where you’re out of the game,
that’s a pleasure in most ways
until you see the outlines of a fence
or some memory comes to call
like burning the mistresses’ letters
and photo that I’d found
snooping in my father’s car trunk
the day we buried him.
Visitors like this
are endemic to the Zone,
cancelling the pastoral
with a Nazi smirk.