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There are sacred places.

Football fields for those who won their division
but nothing else.

Classrooms where physics exams
were won and lost.

Burned down homes
that saw twenty Christmases.

The first place you saw her.
The last place you saw her.

I can see that crazy dog still.
A shetland named Kodie.
He had one floppy ear,
And ran faster than the birds flew
after a white frisbee.

And I can see her too
in early November
at the Overlook of the Natchez Trace,
spry like this dog she loved.

When she smiled,
she smiled all the way,
as far as her lips would part.
Her pale green eyes would disappear.
I found what those
playwrights in California sell to us.

And then one day
she changed her mind
and though I prayed to God for her return,
I never saw her again.

And I went back to the Overlook some night after.
It was only myself
and the breeze through the oaks and pines.
There were stars but no moon.

And then a great comet came.
It skipped across the sky like a stone on a lake.

It was blazing white
then a faint green and pink
into lavender
and then it burst and crumbled.

And the crumbs of the great comet
followed behind and sparkled away
as if to bow with spread arms.

and I never, ever felt so loved in my life.

Ridgeland, MS – 10/25/11