He walks in sunlight, sparrows
on his shoulders, haunted
by butterflies, rabbit ears
poking through the grass, chipmunks
chatter as he wanders past
Lost in a flowerbed of thoughts
the shadows creep and grow—
quickly they swallow the path
and the mourning dove cries
as he is left standing alone
beneath the sickled moon.
Author’s Notes:
I had another week where I struggled to get a poem posted, but I got up, took a break, and got the camera out and took pictures of bugs in the flowerbed, and came back and started over.
I kept going back and forth and back and forth about whether to make this first person or third person, and I ended up landing on third person because it’s a little darker seeming in first person. And then I went back and forth on whether I wanted it to be she or he, and I decide to make it he because I thought it makes the vulnerability in the poem a little more interesting and more mysterious.
I did a search and found that this is the fourth time I’ve used the word moon in a poem. Not sure if it’s a lazy trope or a thematic repetition…for the sake of my dignity, I’m going to say that it’s a theme.
Favorite Line:
‘haunted by butterflies’
Most Cliché Line:
‘and the mourning dove cries’