This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

"On My Back Porch"



on my back porch
through the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass door
there is a weathered bottle of Guinness
the frayed edges of the label
marking the months since its abandonment
from soft hands and mouth forever foreign to my own

in the morning, the sunlit glint
refracts midnight brown glass
the original sin of my every sunrise
the thumbprint on the Mona Lisa
the first dent in a new car
the D in algebra
the hit-and-run body in the woods
we never talk about
keeping the scar of that night
the conversation forever fresh
her body
his
and my oblivious complicit silence

in the years hence,
when I think back about this home
I will remember the southern view
the sound of birds in the morning
bees around dusk
the first soft snow of winter
the creak of livingroom floorboards

and this bottle

refracting sunrise into my eyes
a tangible manifestation of sin
morning,
after morning,
after morning

I am not writing this poem
to ask for her forgiveness
it’s too late for that
nor my own absolution
undeserved

I am writing this poem
so if you ever visit my home
come wandering in to my back door
you do not make the mistake of picking up this bottle
it is not forgotten
instead imagine
it is bolted to the wood
nailed down with cold sin
impossible to lift
impossible to forget
impossible to forgive

No comments: