FACING THE WALL

There was no good reason,

he told himself over and over.

He repeated this again and again

to his wife and daughter,

to mourners at the church,

to the mine shaft in the mirror.

There was no good reason,

he reminded the neighbors in

the kitchen, faces at the office,

the phone that froze the clock.

All eyes were on him to explain,

to assign logic to the wall,

to the hand that lost its grip,

to the fall that should have gouged

a knee or beat an elbow black

and blue but not the universe.

There was no good reason,

he told the wall itself, night after

night, the wall with no sight,

no saints, no arms to catch

what falls, the one oblivious to

circumstance and consequence,

oblivious to his beautiful boy,

the wall strangers would point

to for years to come as that wall

where it happened, the one

that divided his days into past

and present, darkness and light,

the one he too could only face

but not climb over.

Peter Serchuk has had recent poems appear in MARGIE, Third Wednesday Journal, Inkwell, New York Quarterly, and New Plains Review. In addition, a new collection, All That Remains, is published by MARGIE/Intuit House.