Reliquary

You can’t help trying all you can
to become what you are not.
I could have stayed that small inside.
Hugging my mother in the thunder.
Already dark, the sky got darker.
Rain swamped the fields, mud running down the streets.
My uncle’s horse galloped. To feel free.
Raced around the fenced-in pasture.
A horse my talisman. Look it up,
how charms immerse the mind. Sand
becomes mud after the sky closes
cloud’s jaws. I drew it all by hand,
lightning striking pine trees, my thunder mouth
erupting like a tongue the shape of teeth
grinding sun against skin I extended
into a picture of storm of words.
You can’t help it. You were what you wanted
to be, about to die like you were born.
Brother in his grave before the storm.
Father and mother in theirs. Where snow drifts.

(15 February 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander