My Anchor

My Anchor

You are my anchor in every sense

And I can not shed myself of you

Without abandoning her

My brown-eyed-girls staring back at me

Those songs and times awash and gone

Disparaged love like a flotsam jettisoned for the journey requested

White bleached porch and all the curves of that mansion

Wander like a Shining hedge maze monster

Lurking to come alive and slash my jugular

In my sleep not so far enough from here

To come and re-impress me with all that was

Like the past of oppression on the laws of this land

Defined by why, I am here for her and not for you

But how is she not the string attached like a tangent

Tunnel my thoughts must run through

To see those brown eyes starring

The radio comes on blaring of 1999

Passing and a French Quarter sot and staging

A decade to be and Chicago airplane with a New York tragedy

Andersen falling and the head partner calling at 4:30 on a Monday

Packing my things and things are not ok

Government actions and learning the division of fractions

Rebuilding and kindling self-esteem in a trenching down

For the battles of hallways and crawfish red kitchens

Fixer-er-up living with concrete backyards trekked-out under the stars

With a flat roof slapped on and scars with the slosh of renovated tears

Falling and calling that life was at it again and who could I turn to

And it was all just pretend in a nuclear error with your hand on the button

So very assured that I had the tonnage to handle this fallout

The rocks on to a Lone Star life and all there was: was her and you and an I

Southwest plane trips and training in weeks and a starter-kit-over life

With our dreams getting rained on out in the street

I called to you to sell that shadow box river-ridged-up shack

And all of the stress of never being able to move on crept up my back

Like Gollum riding threatening the deed and what solace could you give me

But disdain in the refrains that it was my fault we were here in that state

And I saw that mythical white gate porch to your castle

Salvation in the rappel down from that sanitary Texas

Into this Indian town stasis, living and giving you all that was

Residing with your parental ogres and pretend this was worth the times

To get you your drink of the whitest of wines in that sip

To rock in that chair and end all of this for moments I could look back

And compare and contrast and weigh out the times to be worth it for all of the

Crimes I had seen the dirty hands the drowning in the streets

Of whatever I ever wanted was never for myself to just live to find a common joy

In the life of pleasing you, such a fallacy failed and it all rang true

In departure and relived barter to play out the hand of having

Any memory of love, flayed in your hands in that wrap around wounding

Anchored here in this town to her and to you entwined in a crime

Of what I must un-entomb to move out and on and up and gone

And to cut the chain of these links and just see her in these: my streets

My life and no longer you and to do that I can not fathom how

But I must fly on this motorcycle over ramp and all these spectators

To slalom this sky and jump like a eagle and fly beyond the comprehension

Of this strawberry pit, seeded in the spite of knowing I am better than

And relinquishing it, just might not matter to anyone anywhere and that is a care

I can let go of to submit to knowing God may or may not exist
I may never get it right, but there is each day to do my best
(It could always be worse)

Even if it is boring, maybe I can make my own life for exploring

To read to love in the best way I can find, whether she is all I ever have

And I have to carve out my memories with the numb blade of a staff

With discernment over surgery to have both patients survive

Maybe I , maybe I can cut the anchor