Poetry class #4

Egress[1]   

They saw the mantle in his fist.
The air crackling with all the words
                  left unsaid between them,
he met his father’s eyes
and tried to sear the memories into his brain,
tried to close the coffin lid.

He pressed her lips with his ~
like the pages of a book press flower petals ~
to keep her.

Then, he turned
and walked away.

Side-stepping, leaping over
hooves and horns and tails and entrails,
he escaped the half-plowed pasture
like a general leaves a conquered battlefield.

Holding the mantle in a strangling grip,
and with ever increasing strides,
his feet gobbled up the distance
between him and Elijah.


[1] 1 Kings 19:19-21

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