Come April

If not for the hair
caught in the corner
where the broom
cannot reach,
I would never know
that you were here.

And if not for the corner
where the broom
cannot reach -
if not for the moulding
that pinned it -
if not for the wall
and the ceiling’s crease -
if not for the rafters
and shingles,
there we would be no hair.

And if not for the hair,
there would be no fingers,
no care to tie a single knot,
that last delicate act of binding,
carried to the window,
released.

And if not for the window,
if not for the wind or
the spruce entangled,
if not for the wake -

No robin’s nest or blue eggs
come April.

Silk

Perhaps it is patience,
or slow digest
that lures me to a web.

Perhaps it is stillness
and those eight black eyes
of a widow’s watch.

For nothing runs in the hourglass,
no sand, no blood -
all things are stilled.

As she waits for eons,
we have only days,
between a love and a winding,

And as each swept thread
clings to the straw,
we cannot unweave

What long before our eyes
had warmed a heartbreak -
cannot dispel the grief that binds us,

One long strand, each to another,
like silk that holds all rain
at once in a tear, or a dewdrop.

Devon Brock is an aged punk who split the city for the sticks and discovered that all things huge can be found in a greasy cardboard box under the passenger seat of a junk pickup truck.