PAX

The dingy lights of the sign cut through the mist.
The illuminated word was important,
or it must have been.

Important enough for someone
to put it on a sign, and electrify it.

But now half the bulbs are fading.
More than a few letters are dead,
and what was once so important
is now something else.

The letters still alive are three
P, A, X. In that order.

And we can only hope
those three stay alive

Wide Open

I wish I could still doze off
on those yard sale couches
that somehow never got moldy
or rotten
or old.

We could sit through the night
Each in our own armchair,
And watch the passage of time
As our thoughts and words
Flooded the atmosphere

Somehow we woke
Without bugs in our moths
Or leaves in our hair,
and I don’t remember the cold.

like logs in the fire,
We would light into flames
And then slowly fizzle into sleep
U nder the stars and the trees.