passing

I could hardly understand her appreciation of such a face at the time she had unveiled this man to me. Years had gone by with such graceless poetry and have left me standing here, staring into this same face all over again.

The casket was open and much like a fridge door let all the cold out.

For the first time I was able to see some fraction of what she had spoken of. This face was like the most abstract of Picasso’s works, and as such demanded nothing less than a trained eye to take note of the beauty that lay beyond the commoner’s viewpoint.

I felt great shame now staring into the face of a once admirable man, a man I none the less had shown grand indifference to while in front of him, yet even greater venom when his back was turned.

My serpent’s strikes have only poisoned myself.

I have missed an opportunity to become a better man through osmosis.

She sits almost silently, passion within her every movement. My heart breaks at every fluttering of her lashes.

I am no more a man within her gaze, long since ruined by the words I had spoken aloud and frequent. No woman desires a lumberjack in her rainforest.

There was no way of showing how I had changed, no time for it now. I resolved then and there to lay rest to any over fantasized notions that I harbored.

I gently touched her shoulder as I walked by, so that she may realize that I too had now passed.















-j.g.smith (06/10/07)