The Poetry of Mark Daniel Milbocker 
Recursifenestration

When I was a boy,
I stared out the rain-ridden window
and listened to the melancholy ping
of asphalt puddle pianos
notes ringing long into the ear
 but I leapt out into my pubescence
slow dancing between jacks and dianes
as I astutely and assiduously garnered
grades and trophy milestones
like shells from an ageless beach
 so I leaped out into college life
slipped free from the parental noose
and shoved my diploma into the job-sized
hole waiting behind silvered storefronts
and sowed my mojo up the rope ladder
 then I bartered for a roof and
popped for my own octagon sapphire[1]
for a bit of earth to garden and grow
while watching from a security camera
as Amazon casts cardboard into bushes
 and I shattered my pane with
the resonance of my screams
cutting to ribbons the shards of my
sweet dreams the cavitation of
my decades drowning so I
 sit here with an ice pick and dare
the next diaphanous cicada wing
to shield me from the elemental
quell the rainstorm dull my melody
steel me from my own cringe
 I am the iconoclast of mirrors
whose shallow refraction fails to
capture the sparkle of our opal flame
or the condensation of breath
on any sill that may remain.
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©2024 Mark Daniel Milbocker  All rights reserved.