Guest Poet Mike Roycroft
Cindy, Why
She orbited the moon I use
To hide from my planet
And watch her through imaginary telescopes.
She communicated through aged transistors
To send me sporadic signals of her continued interest
That brightened my days for months at a time.
She lingered in a sweet memory
Of a life that used to be
Before it stopped breathing.
She came so close to making the leap with me,
That tender fraction of a second of mutual hesitation
That made the minute that she left last a century.
She filled volumes of poetry books
With the simplistic beauty of her fleetingly genuine smiles,
And she even rhymed.
She languished in that medicine bottle,
Slashing her wrists in that outer space,
While her dictator merely grew irritated.
She received my second-to-last plea for response
And flew back to the bright side of this moon
On a Christmas card.
She finally touched down on the brink of our insanity
To dance, make love, and renew
In the sunlight of this moon.
She left again like a thief in the night
Leaving a pile of broken champagne bottles
To cut my exposed heart.
I sent her my pathetic final plea for response
And I still shower daily in the silence.
Maybe she was lucky enough to die before me.
November, 1997
Mike Roycroft's Questions:
Does this poem sound real, or does this poem sound cheesy and contrived?
Does this poem move you in a genuine, personal way, or do you view it detached and analytically?
Correspond with Mike Roycroft at
POETMIKE69@AOL.COM
with your ideas about this poem.
The Albany Poetry Workshop