Winning Words: SPEAKING TOMAS

Anthology preview

In the darkness
after words,
after the tempest of tantrums,
the wind-whipped tears,
accusation and recrimination sluicing through
the imperfectly slanted jalousies
of you,
me,
us.

After the strangling
silences,
the bleakness of
broken
         lines of connection,
comes contrition—
fragile feelers of empathy
at the fringes of articulation,
stuttered sentences as salve,
not club-tongued boulders
spat to bruise
and bludgeon.

In the darkness
on Hallow's Eve,
outside of the shuttered
salvations of prayer,
there are fireflies
dancing–

a slow ballet
of votive flickerings,
like tacit offerings
on the long vigil
from disavowal
to consonance.
A mute enunciation
of the restoration of
light
and power.