Once Upon a Time Poems

The Empty Crib

Voices suggest
a collapsing of sorts
or some lack of light for him;
quizzical,
he swings the door open.

Why did someone mumble
frightening things,
something about surrender
and God’s will?

He wonders with disbelief
at sunshine’s glare,
playing with the curtains,
in dismantled reflection,
a shock
wearing away,
crisscrossing the pain,
as if his thorax were removed.

High in his chest
a frigid scream clots
with the emptiness
underneath
the baby blanket
he’s staring at.