Damaged Poem by Kelly Vinal

You sang a song of eternal sanctum
Beneath a sliver moon of hope renewed
I discerned your mother’s voice, as it passed
Like an Olympic torch, to your daughters,
In their first, unsteady hymns -
Sometimes, growing old, we begin to
Realize the painted walls that we adored
Are really those of exile

Love is a freight train of possibility,
Interspersed with grain and granite dreams -
Churning full velocity, you can’t command
Its halt to avoid the rocks ahead

With the seasons, we heap our mounds
Of expectation - sometimes pulling rip-cords -
Sometimes, emergency brakes, to find they are
Man-made and subject to human flaw -
You sang a song to overcome the
Emptiness of weeping echoes,
The caverns of hollow promise - those
Stalagmite daggers of damage wrought