The Gods of Creation and Destruction

Jared Pearce

for Finley

The piano you hammered, like

the sagging parlor guitar,

echoes like a cave:

yesterday, this morning, you

were not crossing me,

and the windows

you watched, the divan you stretched,

all empty. Later your art

supplies I’ll pack,

snap them in heavy bags

and stash them underground

in the quiet.

I knew you had to fly, that,

like a song, you could

only be in the passing,

and that like a sculpture,

beauty emerges only after

the dead is cut away.

Jared Pearce‘s books include Down Their Spears (Cyberwit, 2021) and The Annotated Murder of One (Aubade, 2018). Further: https://jaredpearcepoetry.weebly.com.

© Variant Literature Inc 2021