Poem: No

 

No

 

a lifetime of smiles

couldn’t take this away,

as if an atom had exploded

under a jacket of fluff.

 

it didn’t matter anymore,

the obedience

that had left wrinkles under eyes,

 

or the stone-cold anger

that had laid down the law

with the wrath of blame-fisted meteors.

 

once heavy,

a heart pummeled into scars

shone with the lux of a lantern

cutting through its cage.

 

it were as if the moon’s silvery sickle

had reaped a bouquet of wishes,

collecting the stems of fallen stars

to shapechange the world--

 

so much--

farther than dancing footsteps

ever thought could be, leaping,

leaping as they were

in this brilliant earthquake.

 

 

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8/30  ... mods to last stanza