“I forgot, Phillip.”

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

I know what depth is.  You have taught me, whole.

Your hair first taught me with its curls and black.

Your depth dives deeper than the deepest hole.

Because of you now, death nukes an attack

Napoleon would envy.  Voice and throat

Once thrilled me.  Life that hears you speaking makes

Soprano worlds.  Your lashes make a moat

Around us.  In this castle cannon shakes

The outside otherwhere to corpses strewn

To graveless graves and we are deeper than

Religion and philosophy, their moon

With shallow craters less than man with man.

Your slightest movement makes a Braille-like mark.

Your slightest word can wound me, gasp-like, stark.

© Phillip Whidden