Tapped Out

The blessings were mixed, the whole mess licked clean
from a horsehair bowl some joker's dada had left him

Our avid lapping the envy of each starved cat
curled nearby, unpurring, eyes narrowed to watchful slits
skirting the edges, stilettoes mincing convincingly

Oh, the trouble we stirred up --- sometimes with splintery
wooden spoons pricking our outstretched tongues
Sometimes with blenders whose tops blew off, splattering walls.
We licked it like that.

------------------------------------------------

The trees of our land have scars
where pioneers nailed their barbed wire.

And when the worms have had their way
with flesh and wood alike

The rust still runs through ---
swallowed by the stubborn knots
of both fury and patience.

------------------------------------------------

The you that I miss was never there
We met in air, and dispersed with as little mass

Which came first
My wish, or the way you were

I was never sure
which way the wind blew
without clouds occasionally kind enough
to leave clues in a wide, vacant sky

--------------------------------------------------

All her incantations couldn't conjure
one last drop of even bad luck
from the dregs of Old Jude's bag of tricks.

(I am not ashamed
to say the heart stopped long ago)

Revival by needle, by glass, by knife
Every gash and prick alike
And this patron, once saintly, now too
all tapped out.