Madrigal

Of course there is a singing bone,
a treasure, a magic that has been stolen.

There is a king fallen into a stupor, a kingdom
of fields littered with empty cerveza bottles.

He roams the hallways whose walls bear
the imprint of his fists, unable to recognize

any of his daughters. Of course one of them
is determined to get things right again, says

she would do anything.
What will it take to bring him back?

Perhaps there is virtue if not blessedness
in oblivion. Perhaps it’s simply more difficult

to tell which rhetoric is vacant— the low
frequency hum of a radio station that’s always

been too far out of range; or the crickets
whose voices come back, night after night.

 

In response to Via Negativa: Notes on the office of hope.

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