Bald branches hold a toupee of snow. They held tie-dyed leaves a month ago, leaves that have fallen like my once-red hair. Leaves that have blown away to decay. My hair’s seeds have taken root on my chest and shoulders, shoulders where hair used to touch and blow by in the wind of my hippie days.The one afternoon we shared, you ran your fingers through my chest hair, like a pianist playing slow notes. It’s true, there are more violins in my heart than trumpets. I still play piano in the dark. I miss your eyes peeking through the chapel’s stained glass, where some nights I played from midnight to dawn. Your dark hair, like night, danced along the shallow river, where rocks kissed the ballet of your fragile steps. Little did I know, we would bury you in the small cemetery above my cabin. The priest, one snow owl fifty yards away on an oak branch, and I attended. People fear witches. Your black worship upstream in a farmhouse where no one would dare, but me. I ask, has this life become dinner and I am now folding my napkin? Gently placing it on the stained white tablecloth? I signal the waiter for the check, please. I am reaching for my car keys. These subtle endings. Someone waiting. A therapist’s whisper: We have to stop here.
Bill Garten recently had three poems selected by Billy Collins to be both short-listed and long-listed as finalists in the Fish Anthology 2022. Bill is the winner of the 2017 Broken Ribbon Poetry Contest; a Finalist in the 2018 and 2022 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards for Poetry; a Finalist in the 44th New Millennium 2017 Awards; and a Finalist in the Writers @Work 2018 Contest for a group of poems from Asphalt Heart.