sometimes
kevin griffin
Sometimes
Sometimes heroes don’t wear
capes and it snows
in April, though mostly
it just pours rain. Sometimes
it takes a mountain.
Sometimes the desert
comes to us like it did
Jacob, alone,
so sometimes we can’t seem
to let dinner guests leave
even when we know
they’ve poisoned our food.
Sometimes the poison
is the antidote.
And the toughest part,
sometimes, isn’t dropping it
but holding on tight,
though sometimes the rope
just snaps in the middle,
identical forces
pulling towards the same
demise. Sometimes
temperature cools before
words turn solid.
Sometimes we hear soft
whispers, sometimes cries
shrill as the ambulance siren.
People sometimes
fall inside zoo enclosures
while we stand
back and feign concern,
though we’re numb and dumb.
And we sometimes forget
to change the channel. And
we come to know the whole
is less than the sum.
Kevin Griffin am an English and Creative Writing teacher at Detroit Catholic Central High School. He live in Plymouth, Michigan, with his wife and sons. His first chapbook, Line and Hook, was published by the Michigan Writers Cooperative Press. His poetry has appeared in The Broad River Review, Up North Lit, Sheepshead Review, Common Ground Review, The MacGuffin, and Sand Hills Literary Magazine, among other publications.