Delilah

Kaleidoscope

A scattered reflection blinks at me

In this kaleidoscope I’m gazing

I can’t place any fragment seen

With any word nor phrasing

If I could begin to understand 

Its contours or its pleas

I’d hope to spot a single hand

But this image just won’t ease

I tilt the maze to each degree

As dunes and slopes draw near

Waves of time wash over like sea

Where trodden sand grows clear

One footprint in the beaten path

Where loved ones used to walk

Now lonely rocks jut out with wrath

At ships that haunt the dock

Squinting hard I find the ghost

Of my own lips grinning wide

I stagger at it’s pretty host

Who’s swaying side to side

A single blink and she escapes

As a sadistic mirage would

I’m back to shifting colored shapes

Where memories once stood

If I pick up these abandoned shards

Will I cut myself on glass?

If I shuffle my trauma like old cards

What image will amass?

My kaleidoscopic quilt is torn

But can I toss the seams

When in it lives a smile worn

With the glow of younger dreams