A Return to the Crossroads

Anthony Liccione

The motorcycle escorts,
with blue sirens warning
funeral procession mourns
early Monday morning.
Black Cadillac limousine
she at the windows heart,
face nettled in a fish veil.
A stiff body in the tail
folded tidily in mahogany.
Tailored eggshell crepe-
half couch, pillow and throw.

Scandals in the newspaper,
say he died from the tattle
of his tongue with a hit mob.
Didn’t see two bullets ricochet
and find a planting in his head.
Dark clouds extended west
a cemetery swallows rain
where souls roam chained,
of eterna-rest.
Upright granite tombstone,
the face of her beloved man
pale black and white photo,
porcelain heirloom keepsake.

A couple stretched in white
driving the other direction.
Clouds lined silver bundled east
hair of thrown rice, girdle lost
in a toss, while the horns blew
for ‘Just Married’ signs.
Engagement diamond stone
fulfilled their honeymoon resort
of Sandals St. Lucia,
where they will pour hot lava
on their lips and cool the fire
of bodies tangled in waterfalls
until another volcano erupts.

Miles away from memory
she had floated down this road,
when he proposed taking her hand,
now a shovel full of charcoal.
A pretzel they made that night,
licking salt entwining necks
elbow in his chin, the heels
of her feet overlapping his knees,
he sucks her nipples as a weaned baby.
A sprinkle here-sprinkle there,
the ashes now dangle in her eyes
like clock cataracts, as she makes
a return to the crossroad.

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Anthony Liccione is attending college with a major in English. He has a band part time, where he writes and sings. Poetry however, he says, is the real thing. The more he writes poems, the better awareness he finds within himself. His poetry has appeared online and in print such publications as: HazMat Review, Melting Trees Review, Mélange, Wilmington Blues, Drunk Duck, Rochester Shorts, Surprise Me Magazine, BackFlash Magazine, The Surface, Angle, Cabbages & Kings, Deviant Lit., Anthology, Haggard and Halloo, Parnassus, Eagle's Flight, Poet's Review, Ariga, Pale Forest and is scheduled to appear in the September issue of Biff's Board.