Doubt                                                               


            The harrow lay abandoned
            As I pulled myself upwards
            Along the slope in flight,
            Clutching the hard wild grasses glinting

            So many hours, so much will –

            I wanted the moon to myself among the ruins, 
            To sit within that broken circle 
            Wondering about charades, propitiations, 
            Agonies, the whole conspiratorial dance

            I wanted to believe
            That Dante and Ulysses both
            Had travelled there and back
            Even though I knew they made
            Their journeys in melodic gaps

            Whether it’s your lazy eyelids
            Not yet waking, or a father’s breathing out,
            Or men and women turning heads
            While cruelties hasten nameless 
            Children to their end,
            It’s all for us to see from the edges, 
            From the lip

            My pale skin will grow cold
            By degrees, pressed against my earth,
            An ear to the ground
            For the incantation of worms,
            The distant heavens spinning
            Their dispassionate minuets, 
            Also condemned

            Almost as certainly


            ________________________________________________________________________


            Emanuel E. García, 2014