Loss

There on the dusty road bougainvillea
exploded into pink.  And we were still

alive, in love, under the stippled sun.
The hills around us rolled like aching ships.

Tiny cyclamens cracked the warm cracked earth.
The road curved downhill toward whispering

tidewaters, the Aegean.   Starfish sulked
in the shallows.  You were already gone.

I was there, holding a green star, mercy
in my mouth like a hook in a stunned fish.

**

So April is over, and that means an end to National Poetry Month, and an end to the Poem-A-Day ritual over at my old friend Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides.  This poem earned third place honors in the Big 10 competition at Writer's Market (a 10 line poem, each line containing 10 syllables).