Still Brewing To The High Ceiling... Poem by RIC BASTASA

love perhaps had long been gone.
the pigeon having gone to the other side.
one cannot but notice it but no one is speaking.
no one dares speak about the death of love.
no one wants to mourn in the open.

but there is more to loves lost, there is
this kind of love on mutation like a virus
on the loose having killed so many already.
it is this love that continues to stay at home
with oneself, and the rest of the loveless shadows
on the walls of these houses when the time
comes, when all the lights are turned off
when all the windows are closed, when the snow
begins to fall unexpectedly.

one is not afraid of the frost. One has learned
the game of losing like everyone else.
and so here we are, in this house, still at home
less the love of youth, less the excitement of the
tight flesh and hidden bones.

it is this kind of love that persists in the
dining room: toasted bread, butter and strawberry marmalade,
and hot coffee still brewing to the high ceiling.