Spoke Cards

I thought of this one today... wrote it a few months ago.


“Spoke Cards”




I can't remember the score,
but I was at a baseball game

in Milwaukee the day my grandpa died.
He was born and died, appropriately,

in August.

Two days after he’d passed,
I was walking amongst our horses
and heard the news. We lived in the country.

Now, I would say the landscape
was a scornful, imposing symbol
of happiness and thriving life
mocking my loss.

Then, I just knew that it felt too green
and too happy outside
and that I considered riding
one of our horses off, away.

Instead, dumbfounded, I walked to our garage, a hive of busied intentions and naïve confusion, and kicked some rusty bikes into the gravel floor.

If I were a cartoon, probably lots of dust and grainy pixels and a "poof" caption would complement my dirty fingernails.