I.

Freshly-earthed fingers grasping vines
And ancient spines tugged down like fishing poles
Make us human.

Or perhaps it is a plane going cross-country
With an infant in his mother's retreating arms,
Then landing with the infant now upright
And a knowledge of what it is to miss.

He turns over in a foreign bed,
To a lover, then his bride,
Then his out-stretched arms feel only tethers
Of wrinkles upon empty sheets.

In the space, there was a crate
Full of letters and poems and photographs,
Or was it credit cards and medical records
That liked to hum in the mornings?


II.

His pen traces the words "I miss you"
Which are embedded in all blank postcards.
Her eyes absorb light reflected off the card
And her brain translates symbols into sentimentality.

Her keyboard presses down the images in a poem:
They are smitten and lovely and true.

Their arms flip through photos
Whose memories encapsulate flashes of a second.



III.

Are humans soft and kind, with loves so tender,
Or are they cold and still, like a machine
Or a stone gargoyle glaring at people below?

A newborn's grip can be found
In his awkward smile at age fifteen,
But his mind at twenty does not know
How children can feel at home.

Is there a shift
From innocence to experience,
Or is it better described
As a realization?



IV.

Gravel arms reach out for warm hugs,
Their chisel-sharp claws clasp
Onto exhaust from ventilation shafts.

Given a pen and a blank postcard,
It would trace out the sordid tales
Hidden in the paper's tangled sinews.

Its poems are haunted and ghastly and true,
Telling why monsters do the things that they do.

In it's crate are nightmare photographs,
Of tortured souls and rotting flesh.



V.

Why do monsters finish last?

Is it the way they stare in silence,
Stumble for pleasantries,
Say things they ought not,
And hide out on roofs and in caves?

Is it their memories and stories,
That can be described as disconcerting?

Or the fear in their voice
When they're saying goodbye?