I can’t tell the story of my life,
not all of it or even part
of the wonderful truth.
I have these fragments,
shards of glass or a few gulls
on a long wire.

A freight train rose up
from the southern horizon.
I looked away and a dog
ran to me through tall grass.
The surf, just beyond vision,
was a drum with a living voice.

Everyone gathered to pray
but I didn’t join the celebration
or raise my eyes towards Heaven.
I was small and tired so
the engine broke past us
in a gust of time and car after

clattering car until I was alone
with the swirling dust and the cold
tracks running on the mounded ground.
I should have listened to the sea
but I believed that dogs and love
and such days of joy would never end.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
4.10.2017

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