Issue Twenty-Five - Winter 2015

The Long Way

By John Grey

I go home the long way,
via the muse, the roses,
the curly numbers on the letter boxes.

By the lush green park,
poems come in fours.

I harvest the slate-blue eyes
of a passing woman.
I corral what a man must be thinking
to gnash his teeth like that.

Squirrel, you’re no longer a recluse
in your stalwart pine.
You’re parked beside the noisy blue-jay
in a thought, in a diary, in a code,
in a word.

Even the old couple on the bench
aren’t immune from my dawdling journey.

You are the gray-haired strophe.
You are the arthritic antistrophe.
You are the epode,
fingers enfolded,
lines still gripping.

Copyright 2015 Gray

John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published in Slant, Southern California Review and Skidrow Penthouse with work upcoming in Bryant Literary Magazine, Natural Bridge and Soundings East.

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