Aftermath, by Robert L. Dean, Jr.

The Order of Things, by Steven Schroeder (USA) 2016.

Aftermath
 
Just yesterday, it seems,
the world breathed fire and gold
and we, arms interwoven,
 
paused here
 
one bold blue October morning,
gazed out
 
at the changeling sugar maple
with our initials so impulsively emblazoned, no
caution taken
 
for the birthing of snows,
the winter winds brittling flesh,
piercing the bones with
 
cold sharp words
 
on the order of all things,
no thought
 
for the shedding of skins,
coats of many colours shrugged off,
no thought
 
that one of us would be
ever on the outside
looking in.
 
Better, perhaps,
 
that this glass be
wholly empty
instead of
 
half full,
 
beating tears of a phantom heart
fast fading,
 
awaiting only
the kiss
of December’s lips
 
to smother the flicker out,
to usher in the season of last, lost things.
 
Listen: love skitters
like a dead soul
into the darkling deep,
 
not even a sigh of spring
to keep it company.
 ​
Robert L. Dean, Jr.

Robert L. Dean, Jr, is the author of the poetry collection At the Lake with Heisenberg (Spartan Press, 2018). His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Flint Hills Review, I-70 Review, Chiron Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Shot Glass, Illya’s Honey, Red River Review, KYSO Flash, River City Poetry, Heartland! Poetry of Love, Resistance & Solidarity, and the Wichita Broadside Project. He was a quarter-finalist in the 2018 Nimrod Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. He read at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival in 2018 & 2019 and the Chikaskia Literary Festival in 2018. He is event coordinator for Epistrophy: An Afternoon of Poetry and Improvised Music held annually in Wichita, Kansas. He has been a professional musician and worked at The Dallas Morning News. He is a member of the Kansas Authors Club and lives in a 100-year-old stone building in Augusta, Kansas, along with a universe of several hundred books, two electric basses, and a couple dozen hats.