Foregone Conclusion

by David Chorlton / February 9th, 2020

Talk about talk, a wise man once said;
It’ll rain or go dark before morning.
A Mexican woman
still dressed in the night
walks door to door with leaflets
bearing the news
that it‘s a long way from the poor
to where lawns cry out for care.
She’s bundled her face
in a scarf. She never looks up
at the sun as it climbs
to the height at which it surveys
all that lies beneath it waiting
for a mighty judgment, even
though it is uncontested
that the yellow poppies receive permission
to bloom and the guilty souls
in limbo will pass
into Heaven at last, for lack of evidence
against them. They rise
like so many black handkerchiefs
through the troposphere and
stratosphere and when they reach
the mesosphere the gates
swing open on a rusty hinge to let
them through as was foretold
over coffee and donuts on mornings
like this, with prophecy added
free to every order.

David Chorlton has lived in Phoenix since 1978. He grew up in England with watching soccer as a major part of life although he has managed to move on to other interests since then, including reading and writing poetry. Read other articles by David.

This article was posted on Sunday, February 9th, 2020 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.