For the people who cannot let go of yesterday,
it is much closer than today.
I mean you cannot sew up the wounds
taken from a twelve pound Napoleon’s canister fire.
When you are the one with needle and thread
the gaping holes allow you to hear bones weep.
I mean blood is the only blanket that makes you colder.
Unless you believe smallpox was distributed in Pendleton’s wool.
Yesterday’s peach trees are nearer than today’s sagebrush.
A hunger bites the reddish-purple canyon walls all these years on.
Copyright © 2019 Kenneth P. Gurney
