Parole Denied Eyes throw double daggers, His mouth a razor slash, Angled nose a switchblade, For cutting any fool who stumbles close. He smiles straight teeth, Genetic chance, not tooth attention. His wide grin is skeletal, A rictus of desert-bleached bones. He winks, “Save your pity,” Sucks his teeth, “Ain’t no big thing.” My eyes drawn to his I see tears frozen there, Drops inked in flesh, forever etched. He calls me back to a grotto I know, An altar in shadow on swells of grass, Mary, her son draped on her knee Willing him to smile, to wink “It’s alright.” Her tears, too, are frozen, and written there I read, “Great as the sea is my sorrow” Telling me should her tears fall, or his, The wave of them would wash away the world.
David Cameron catches poems half-formed from an off-hand comment or a twist of phrase that makes him see things in a new light. He spent a long time as a Presbyterian pastor and then ended his paying career directing a Meals on Wheels program in western NC. He is now on loan to the trails and waterfalls of the area.
Amethyst Review 