Deep night,
with the moon owl-eye yellow,
I walked on cobblestones
over the atrium walls
of Visigoths and the apse
of Roman baths.
I leaned unsteady against the staff
at the Moor’s necropolis—
on the floor, cracked amphoras,
chalk-white bones in disarray
I saw the sea
rise and cover it all.
There are times and locations
that disrupt the vector
of a life,
and I know I was a stone cutter
or a mason in a different century.
How sure can we be of time,
if space is but an intersection?
I have glimpsed the beggar
outside the temple.
I have been him,
and I have been the temple.
Frank H. Coons is a veterinarian and poet living Colorado. His work has appeared in The Eleventh Muse, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Pilgrimage, Pacific Review, Pinyon Review, El Malpais, Fruita Pulp, the Eleventh Muse, Caesura, and elsewhere. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies, and in 2019 was nominated for a Pushcart prize. His first collection of poems, a chapbook, Finding Cassiopeia was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award in 2013. His second book of poems, Counting in Dog Years was released in 2016. Both books were published by Lithic Press.
