by John Dorroh
On the Eve of Your Moving Day
I regret not building a fire that last night
on our patio, but maybe the candles count.
For days you had been packing boxes–a kingdom of things–
and the moving truck was coming tomorrow.
We drank wine. We spilled wine.
I wanted to tell you I am sorry
for my silences in winter
as we cleaned the spilled wine while I tried
to blame my sadness on the planet Mercury being in retrograde.
It was an illusion.
You were not spinning backwards;
you were living your layered lives
like cherry, chocolate, and oakwood blooming on the palette
greeting and leaving fellow travelers along the way.
We talked about garage door openers
and how only a finite number of codes exist.
Anyone who persists could break
into us all at any time.
Take these dead people off my phone says my mother
after a funeral for a friend
but it’s not like that.
The gravitational pull moves us forward–
ambassadors like dogs leading us to the frisbee place
to the circular place of playing
of tossing our lives to and fro
jumping to catch the laughter.
Stephanie K. Merrill is a retired high school English teacher now living the writer’s life which involves reading, walking, ferns and mosses, cats, tea, and a little writing. She lives under the dark night sky in the arroyos on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Her most recent publications include poems in The Rise Up Review, Blue Heron Review, and Feral: A Journal of Poetry and Art (Issue Two). She has work forthcoming in UCity Review. Stephanie K. Merrill is a 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee.
Although born a writer, John Dorroh also enjoys art: the first photo-essay he created called “Beauty Confined” included pictures from the zoo in Columbus, MS. And of course, several poems followed to add another layer of depth to the topic. It was an unplanned magic. A lifelong traveler, Dorroh’s poetry has appeared in Selcouth Station, Os Pressan, Feral, Blue Moon Literary & Art Review, River Heron Review, El Portal, and many more.