In a Moment

by Royal Rhodes

It takes time to be still,
to see and hear the things
that are there and never there —

the sounds and fragrances,
the light’s agonized gaze —
as a guide to a damaged life;

My, mind is an empty mirror,
a landscape of nothingness —
treeless, airless, deathless.

In the beat that my breath skipped
I learned to embrace being lonely,
a war with love over love —

hallucinations and fits
at night, a heaving heart
that stops in ecstasy.

All I have ceased to be
is a final offering
to erase myself with these lines.