Dead Fish and Turtles Rising

What is left but poetry and surrender?

The crow announces this darker dawn from a peak just beyond view. Sleet/freezing rain/wind. Ache slips in the doorway like autumn leaves I refuse to sweep away.

A memory surfaces of my father lighting water-proof M-80's and throwing them in the lake. He'd run backwards like a trickster, squealing a little as he laughed. Do as I say, not as do. At night, dead fish and turtles would float to the surface in my dreams. How man is a paradox of healing and destruction. Perception as reality. Is this how I know?

No one's home. I turn up the beats in hopes that my heart will realign. Dancing in my black robe, sending love in all directions. I know the dervish I could be. And yet, and yet. Please hate me. That would feel better.

Someone beautiful enough to hold me.

To handle it.

God help me.