“Over‑Shoulder Weather”
I have walked the length of my sentence
long after the gates unlatched,
counting the gravel underfoot
as if each stone might still accuse.
The years have grown moss over my name,
but transgression carved into memory’s vestibule
means there is always one chair turned away,
its back carved with the shape of my absence.
I have mended the fence,
stitched the torn sleeve,
poured water into the roots I once scorched—
but the wind still carries
a syllable I cannot unhear.
So I move,
but not without the weight of glancing—
a pilgrim with a mirror in his pack,
catching the ghost of my own retreat.
And forward is a road
that keeps folding back on itself,
a loop of weathered timber and rain‑dark stone,
where even the horizon
wears my shadow like a borrowed coat,
and the door I step through
is always the same vestibule.
.
