The bright night she lay, her bare back on a litter of sand, and said ok. The lake-dark day he took back to the brittle columns of his heart nah, dude. The time he stood erect on the stump in the autumn air and, grinning, faux-saluted aye-aye, sir! The time they tunneled out of the forest, his lip trailing blood, mouthing no way, José. For the ones who take signs as symbols, as though meaning meant, Constructing an ark of resentment at sea, plank by plank, portent by portent; And for the others who take all signs of meaningfulness as meaningless, The metaphysical free-riders who shrug and semiote: Call it a letter to the soil and sea and air, A love letter to the Earth we once knew, Its once-warm embrace— We say, in fondest adumbration, Don’t hold tight. Say goodbye while you still can.Charles Byrne is a writer with other poems forthcoming or recently published in Birmingham Poetry Review, Meridian, and Stonecoast Review.
