Getting There
Up ahead, a night without sleep.
Up ahead, a self-fulfilling prophecy,
which includes ravens’ laughter
and the full measure of a horsefly.
“We’re on a road,” I tell my shadow,
that laggard falling behind, the one trembling
at the thought of night falling.
I peer from the runnels of my sadness . . .
Up ahead, a wedding cake on fire.
The undertaker, waving his black pamphlets.
A hill with a bloody gash in it.
“And we’re no farther along,” I tell my angel.
She answers with an immense silence.
She winks. She beckons with a crooked finger.
©2023 Bruce McRae All rights reserved.
Bruce McRae, a Canadian musician, is a multiple Pushcart nominee with poems published in hundreds of magazines such as Poetry, Rattle and the North American Review. The winner of the 2020 Libretto prize and author of four poetry collections and seven chapbooks, his poems have been performed and broadcast globally.