As Mourning Doves Persist

                                   In the back lot is a broad-shouldered truck father to a sleeker figure with fins You have graduated to walking                         (or sailing an electric model with no sound) but the workhorse of your boyhood is patient                         longing parade watchers recall                         the boulevard (though small) of the quarterback, the professor, and the lifeguard Your ears showed then and the cleft in your chin yet it’s the softness in your eyes, headlights,                         that have grown refined. You feed the birds on the lanai and read the signs from behind                         glasses propped on your nose   no vehicles required to reach the spirit of the present in your dreams you may be waxing the baby blue buffing the hubcaps and grille, grateful for the heft                         of the keys in your jeans pocket but in daylight you squint and remember (I

as we walked the nightmare streets, cold thoughts wrapped in wool scarves scratching against the hard words. You step off the edge, nearly falling. I wouldn’t catch you, even if I tried  tonight, nursing wounds. Piercing dog cries paw at the heels of things I should not have said... (excerpted from the longer poem) found in The Shape of Caught Water http://redmountainpress.us/ or directly from the author (covelli@cybermesa.com)