After You

After you, comes darkness.

Darkness of the night,
And a violent darkness of you.

After you, it talks in a language I
understand
but can’t speak,

(Or maybe a little.)

And I talk in a language it understands
but can’t speak.

Or won’t.

After you, is nothing.

After you is quiet and quiet
for hundred miles or so
and everything beyond that
is deafening.

After you, is everything.

After you is love, peace,
and fragility.

Love, peace and fragility.

Repeat.

After you, are smokescreens
and lights out.

After you, is a defiance to authority.

After you, is hue and cry.
After you, is aftermath.
Afterthought.
Aftertaste.

After you, are afterwards.

After you, is the sun
as reflections through my window,
after you is the light creeping
through the cracks

and then, I.

 

—2018 ©