r james sterzinger (9-11-56 / midwest)

on our wedding night
I buried myself into
your arms
you buried yourself
into mine

indifferent
to you now:
like the winds that blow
off Erie that form
the storms
that buries Buffalo
in the shroud
of winter

no Christmas
in Buffalo:
no warm feelings for the tide
we harden our hearts here
we carve them into grave markers
we fake our grief
our love is lost in the solstice.

when you buried the bullet
into your head because you wouldn't
bear the indifference of my love

it reflected our wedding night
or a winter storm
beautiful, but nothing I wanted to be
in the middle of.

my tears are only icicles
they reflected the church lights
nothing more.

so again, my dear, my fool
nothing lost, nothing spent.
hearts don't break in Buffalo

the streets that crack
when the permafrost leaks
between winter and winter
we patch with more rock

so as you are wrapped tight
in the arms of death or hell
think of me content to be wrapped
in another man's arms
you in your eternity
me here in mine