Half Generation

A half-generation’s footsteps scuttled

prints dampening in foliage

unkempt lawns next to her

monument of a photo collage

where figures etched in stoic

frame leer back in jettisoned eyes through

panes of glass so cold to the touch

Streets thrown into grids of limbs

partially bare in the onset of winter’s

chrome-casted light mixing the warm

nostalgia of days with blanket fits

unnerving of night stills and morning

stumbles its way across before settling in

to carry the way home

Peering as if through rash of mind

back to you in droves of words and wishes

rewritten as if arranged ad hoc in frame

of paralysis of chart or nature in seeking

to explain its passion or purpose charted

through windows puddled on pavement

graded through red clay flesh

Matt Mauldin
12/2017
Santa Barbara, CA