Mitchel David Ring

Underfoot

It’s in the water, in the air here, the leaves not alone in their dying...

Gasping, choking among refuse and wreckage, crawling out of waves like hammer strokes, the sunset at our backs and broken masts silhouetted...

It’s always raining here, a secret language falling steady, collected in stone basins...

I burn sage because I like the way it smells. The demons I let stay because they’re good company.

In another life with glasses raised and fire in our throats to keep us warm through the night...

After falling, breaking bones against the ground, the sky torn away replaced with flesh and blood, we laughed and laughed...

Tensed for a blow that may never fall, my back to the night and waiting...

They were handing out pieces of the apocalypse today...

A glimmer out of nothing, shadows set in shadows come alive...

There might have been a path here once, but probably not...

These things we say, quiet enough that the world has to lean in to hear us...

Out there they said some things could be remembered...

Signed, with love, an enemy...

That was me, stumbling blind in darkness like no other darkness...

There for a moment dead and gone, passing by, then into the crowd, obscurity...