The Sheets

The Sheets

The sheets of years hang on a line
in my yard and flap in the wind.
Some are gray, a few newly white,
many are blood-stained and
mapped with lost roads to distant
stopovers fading in memory's mist,
while others are torn, full of holes and
frayed edges.

I brush through the gauzy
linens, moving them aside with
wrinkled, ancient fingers,
seeking a clear view of the
horizon but I can't escape their
enveloping folds as some
snap over me and sting with
biting reminders of soured
schemes and empty dreams that
once promised so much more than the
worn, threadbare realities which
clutter my living room, dark and
silent in mystifying shadows.

Others gently brush my face with the
peaceful promise of sleep but I spend
my nights thrashing restlessly in a bed
spiked with pointed losses and
grizzled corpses which lie beside me and
moan their grievances and accusations,
preventing my escape to the empty
consolation of the darkened mind.

The dim maze is filled with strange
passages leading nowhere except to
another morning and a day full of
doubt about who I am.

I examine the pores and
hairs of my hand but
I long to look into my heart
where scenes of the past
still pulse with pain and
pleasure below the mask of
my stoic smile, a life that will
not die and vibrates my
present with deep, dark echoes.

But my eyes cannot
see below the surface
and I stand blinded in the
center of the menacing
sheets which whip and snarl as
I search for an escape and a clear
view of the late afternoon sun.