Black Flowers

He said – long ago – that
myth was dead. He meant it.
 
“Myth is dead!”
“Long live myth!”
 
They are playing out
something. Legendary.
 
Picks up her glass. She
has a glass, with coffee,
 
ice and milk in it. Thinks
about the refugees on the
 
road. Road to what, to
where? With nothing but
 
their clothes on their backs.
Mythic and literal.
 
How to speak about them
and why? How to speak
 
to them. To keep them
in mind. In our minds.
 
“Bless you and keep you,”
so the prayer says.
 

Copyright Credit: Norma Cole, "Black Flowers." Copyright © 2016 by Norma Cole. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow, a partnership between the Poetry Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network.
Source: PoetryNow (2016)