The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Heddy Reid

The Barn

Cracks of sunlight flare

between weather-roughed boards

to define an interior, abandoned now,

that still preserves the sweet smell

of horses, the remembered sound

of them, the stomp and shake

of them, their nickerings

and soft exhalations—even

the misaligned bridles angled

on pegs these many years.  Oh, barn,

inconsequent and indestructible,

who says we need physics

to understand time travel?  

Years After

Years after

my father died,
I was remembering him

one January night
when I saw what

I took to be

his soul

drift from the chimney

and hover

like a gray scarf

over the hearth.   

I couldn't  

not reach for it. 

If he'd stayed

I would have told you this sooner.