Sustain

The sunlight filters through half-cracked blinds
and makes something like piano keys on your chest.

The early morning has no sustain pedal.

------------------------------------------------------------

A magpie swoops down into the wheat fields
and throws off the metronome of the stalks.
They swayed in time with the wind, but now
some drift
offbeat,
or perhaps they follow
a different rhythm:
some in time
with the flapping of the magpie’s wings,
some in time
with the many divisions
of the moon’s path across the sky,
(that nightly baton).

------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes, just before you fall asleep,
your eyes remind me of the sun
passing behind the clouds.

------------------------------------------------------------

The leaves turn to silent syllables
the trees no longer pronounce
while the clouds’ bellies push out,
pregnant with rain.

You have been sneaking out
in the mornings to vomit
in the bathroom.

I wish that my crescendoing questions
didn’t have to be answered
by thrown-aside sheets
and an empty bed.






Click here to listen to Tyler King reading "Sustain"









Tyler King is currently working toward his B.A. in English at Whitman College. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Convergence, FreeXpresSion, Jerry Jazz Musician, The Binnacle, Burning Word, Black Heart Magazine, and BlazeVOX.