John Tustin

 
AMNION SHADOWS

Emerging from amnion shadows,
Hidden from the prying gaze of living,
I was just a husk.
Corpulent scarecrow, alabaster wraith,
I rifled through trash cans in the endless nights
And withered unblinking in the heat of day.
Continuing to exist was a kind of victory.
Bones bleached, eyes burning,
Not even bothering to search.
I knew there was nothing there.
I had mastered misery,
Perfected it with my self-pity
And my razor hate.
 
Then there was you.
From the blurry image
And the fragments of my heart
You arrived.
Then there was you with fiery frame,
With basalt eyes.
There you were to rust the chains of endless night,
To restore me to that time before childhood.
Now I hold on to you
As your leg snakes around mine,
Bare in the small distant light of another room,
A room far from dirty hardscrabble life
That was only a series of useless moments
Before you were here.
 
Now I touch your face,
I taste your tongue on mine
Like a caught snowflake,
And my only sadness
Is that it took you so long
To get here.
And my regrets are gone
With the shadows that once
Defined my existence.

John Tustin is the divorced father of two perfect children. He cannot play a musical instrument or speak a second language. http://fritzware.com/johntustin is a link to his poetry online.