Home Issues Contributors Submissions Contact Links Take Action PoetryDepot
Brendan Constantine
No Guessing
I keep reading how destiny laughs at chance, how the man who said so
was ahead of his time, but he was seventy when he died, had a beard
like a white Persian cat devouring his considerable face. I bet he
didnât go willingly.
I bet he didnât say âHoney, would you hold my pen, itâs my
turn
to die.â I bet someone had to pry the bedsheets from his hands. And
after
they wrote him into the ground, his beard went on growing, grew until
it
had arms and legs, a tail and teeth. I bet it prowls the cemetery
still, a huge and muscled
snow leopard, the old manâs skeleton still caught in its
coat.
Thereâs no telling if youâd ever see it and if you did, no guessing if
it might
tear you apart like a bedroom. Destiny can laugh all it wants about
chance,
but chance is on the floor about destiny. Itâs knocked over the table
with the candles and the goldfish. The carpet is ruined, the party is ruined,
the night is ruined,
it can never be cleaned.
Copyright (c)Brendan Constantine, 2005. All rights reserved.