Been There

Robert Okaji, Poem

Imagine how summer rain differs from 
winter's. How I've become the blackest 
ribbon of your nights. What if
pine needles rose from the earth
to rejoin branches? And your conspiracies 
all wove true? A tapestry of bleak
faces concealed in untruths. Bottles 
uncorked and emptied. I no longer
fill your glass. Nor do I listen.

Rockport

Robert Okaji, Poem

Is this rubble home or destiny?
They live in the interim, forever between.
Submerged yet floating. Crowded, alone.
A smashed boat on dry land tells one tale,
the roofless house in knee-deep water, another.
Still, no sirens announce their fury.
Nothing to return to and nowhere to go.
Flies shattering the returning calm.

Robert Okaji lives in Indiana. The author of multiple chapbooks, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vox Populi, riverSedge, The Big Windows Review, North Dakota Quarterly and elsewhere.