Omens

Omens

By Cecilia Llompart
Poets.org
February 26, 2017

The dead bird, color of a bruise,
and smaller than an eye
swollen shut,
is king among omens.

Who can blame the ants for feasting?

Let him cast the first crumb.

~

We once tended the oracles.

Now we rely on a photograph
a fingerprint
a hand we never saw coming.

~

A man draws a chalk outline
first in his mind
around nothing
then around the body
of another man.

He does this without thinking.

~

What can I do about the white room
I left behind?

What can I do about the great stones
I walk among now?

What can I do but sing.

Even a small cut can sing all day.

~

There are entire nights
I would take back.

Nostalgia is a thin moon,
disappearing
into a sky like cold,
unfeeling iron.

~

I dreamed
you were a drowned man,
crown of phosphorescent,
seaweed in your hair,
water in your shoes.

I woke up desperate
for air.

~

In another dream, I was a field
and you combed through me
searching for something
you only thought you had lost.

~

What have we left at the altar of sorrow?

What blessed thing will we leave tomorrow?