by Todd Osborne
A slab of driveway is cracked, is missing.
The limbs of the old magnolia the only witness.
The root must have burbled up, we say, displaced this patch of concrete.
We make plans for summer, imagine a day impossibly free of rain
or regret. Later, we cry. What will we inherit from our parents? What pass on?
I believe more in repetition than rhyme, but I also believe in history.
Whatever we want, the future will decide for itself. I say I can, at the very least,
take down the fence in the sideyard, make room for something new in our world.
We’ll remake ourselves if we have to: new lands, our new flags unfurled;
we’ll remake ourselves and tell ourselves: once, this house was empty, and then there was you.
::
Todd Osborne is a poet and educator originally from Nashville, TN. His poems have previously appeared at The Missouri Review, EcoTheo Review, CutBank, and elsewhere. He is a poetry reader for Memorious and a feedback editor for Tinderbox Poetry Journal. He lives and writes in Hattiesburg, MS with his wife and their three cats.
Image: Krakograff Textures
ID: deep cracks in concrete.
Psaltery & Lyre 