Melancholy Quartet

Melancholy Quartet

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The breath that I threw

against the window

It blurred your face, the pane…

I took up my own sleeve to

Wipe away the ghost of it all,

And then you were gone.

She stepped off the bus too early

For the daisies that grew

On the curb of the dusty streetside

She stole them from the soil,

Planted them in her heart,

But they wilted, still.

The 3rd grade teacher

You used to love,

Was brought to the center of the city

They said she taught too much kindness,

And not enough scrutiny

So they threw their stony words at her.

He smoked them two at a time, seared to his lip

Dousing them in a bottle 

full of rainwater 

The coffee can he had

Was full of the devotions and scriptures

He did not need.