Dead Woman
By John Grey
I ran my fingers over
strong-room doors
to sense the width
of how cut off you were from me,
began counting the miles
from here to universe end
to get a feel for distance.
I could see death everywhere:
bare winter trees,
roadkill, obituary photos
but wherever I looked,
life was washed out,
hazy, evaporating.
I began to believe
that everyone was dead.
Buses cased the darkened streets
like hearses.
Ferrymen cops steered the hour.
A homeless man begged for change,
not for whiskey, for his eyes.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Santa Fe Literary Review, and Lost Pilots. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires”, “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the Seventh Quarry, La Presa and California Quarterly.
