Sunday Afternoon

Sunday Afternoon

By Michael Anthony Adams, Jr.
from his poetry collection, The Tree Outside My Window.

Believe me when I say that
I have seen the stars of night
sparkle in the light
of a woman’s sight.

I have forgotten more visions
of mirages on sand
than grains of that same sand
ever slipped through my hands.

I have lost more lives
than have ever been stolen
from a cat on the prowl
or a family in war.

I have stared at myself
until I grew roots
and cut those roots
to move downstream

and stare again.

I have fought and cried so many times,
and never once did I believe
a single scream could not be heard
until the day I met the day
when every scream’s cacophony
tore through my dream, leaving me
shaking and sweating, wringing my hands:
bloody, drenched, and licked so clean
by tongues of whores who torture me,
forcing me, gasping and drowning,
buried and choking,
beneath the sullen,
sandy sea.

Header image: John Thomson (1778–1840), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Click here for more poems from The Tree Outside My Window.