Mimicking the path we walk  by Mike Bernicchi

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

Peonies stagger paths worn in spots
they were picked
long ago to heal –

Aged men squat watching the spent parts scattered
on the ground / covering the earth
as patterned blankets
they saw once in bazaars

• they picked through

while rounding up dark men

with bright eyes
with bradley overwatch behind them bending
and swaying like rhythm section slides in spring
with every gust of brass
petals flounce and
men are marionettes now

in recessed shade spit through
pashmina blue
in violent redundancy / every
body in bloom / every body
a path of peonies
in june

no-men
wandering through no-man’s land
picking ourselves apart in as the process

There is just as much
function in the
shadow
as the object
itself

---

Timing

I
am merely the result
of future me’s
questionable choices

You
were simply
one of
them

Mike Bernicchi is an American poet, curator, veteran, and teacher living and working between Southwest Florida and Brooklyn, NY. Most recently, Bernicchi’s poems have appeared in Alternating Current, ELKE, BOOOOOOOM, and War, Literature & the Arts.