AFTER THE OFFERING

by D.L. Tricarico

you are spread across
the sheets
like a sacrifice
so poor
you cannot even
afford the cost
of your own stigmata.

I am transfixed,
having moved from convert
to non-believer.

In that moment,
paralyzed before us,
The room darkens
like a secret
told too fast.

DEATH SONG

by D.L. Tricarico

I know all about death
And how when the sun is tame
And the wind is warm
It can be a kind of torture if
The pain still sings in your heart.
I know all about death.
I am intimately familiar with
loss and loneliness
which are really only two
sides of the same coin.
I've heard all about how death comes.
I’ve been told how a music
Plays at the end
That only you can hear
Heavy on power chords, basslines,
and regret. I know it comes
when you need something else
altogether. A new client,
a phone call from your children.
 A tune from The Beatles, maybe.
But then, There it is, in front of you,
staring at you like it does.

LIFE LESSON

by D.L. Tricarico

you have to have patience
for it all
the illness
the death
the supermarket lines where other
humans murder your time
with their stories
and other acts
of routine mundanity.
you have to have patience
for the burdens and the setbacks,
the broken dish,
the stalled cars, the once pure
relationships
that have grown rotten
and corrupt, the pressing "1" for
“English,” and
the endless rain and snow.
you have to
have patience for
the difficult child, the late plane,
the loading app,
the keyboard key that sticks
and changes your entire message.
you have to have patience
for it all,
until you see
how it’s slowly killing you
and only then
do you realize
that you have to have
patience with yourself,
hoping all of those you love
survive once you finally snap.

RESPIRATION

by D.L. Tricarico

breathing
brings us back
to the meaningful
and the grand
the inhalation
of green leaf
and birdsong
the exhalation
of traffic
and chatter
breathing
brings us back
to ourselves
reminds us
when survival
is the first thing
on the list
that we must
let in the air
then let it out

TEMPTATION

by D.L. Tricarico

Sometimes, I confess,
I even find it
sitting on my porch
in the morning,
hungry, cold, and ragged,
tongue out and wagging,
my untold desires
whining like a stray,
a beat beast
just begging for
an extra morsel.
If you want to know
the truth, I usually
feed it and I’m
almost never sorry.

SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY

by D.L. Tricarico

When I first saw the sign
I'd been driving less than
a year and knew instinctively
that it was warning us
to brake because gaggles of
schoolchildren were in the middle
of hopscotch, four square, or
kick-the-can, and the city didn't want
them hit. But for just a moment,
the sensitive part of me
was looking out for kids
who were damaged, who couldn't read,
who had trouble interacting with others,
or who were in some other way
diminished and were just
trying to enjoy a moment
of escape and so they
might not see me coming.

SOME DANCE TO FORGET

by D.L. Tricarico

I see you in the picture
wearing your black dress
with the red chiffon sash
and dancing with him
in some kind of celebration
and suddenly it is as if
the swaying of your body
has erased the past two decades
as if I never gave you daises
by your classroom door
as if you never sang to me
as we parked in my parent's car
near the undulating ocean,
as if we never held
each other in the cool gray
of the almost dawn.