Somewhere Along the Way I Cried Again

Somewhere Along the Way I Cried Again

                        By: Mark Joseph Sutherland

Not long and for a while

afterwards, little tears did

not flow against these

cheeks. If they did, blame it

on dust or house fly, specks

of gnat. I had a lock

around the box. Signage

hangs on dark lines

of my forehead reading:

for deposits of feeling only.

Withdrawn from movements

beyond nod and smile,

tip of my fedora pulled,

I miss seeing me

in strangers’ eyes

much more than the pain

under lock and key. I am

laboring at hiding, full

time suppressor of hurt—

it guides, lays still like dirt

seems motionless. Unseen

below soil yet alive and well.

Somewhere along the way

I cried again until earthworms

appeared between mud and week

old clover sprouts promising

to be crimson, begging for roots.

I knelt, letting my eyes

do all the work this time.

Not even the rain agreed

with me. I’m not embarrassed

by my choice of evening

entertainment. Masculine clouds

bring rain and thunder. I cried

for the soft boy dying

to climb the slippery maple tree

now towering over clover,

earthworm, and mud. I wept

for these worms in ecstasy.

My empathy as blind

as their mating. Together,

we’ll feel dawn drying our face,

eyes, skin soon, too soon,

to the sidewalks of man,

perhaps the songbirds’ beak

an hour after sex while

pollen grounds and seeds of clover

fertilize the soil, the maple, the man.