A Poem by Chad W. Lutz

A Breeze She Hardly Knew

 

She used to watch the waves crash the breakers

Clutching old love letters like life-strings;

the only things she had left of him.

She stood wishing for times to be as they were,

Despite having moved to the Puget Sound.

Sometimes she would think about the rock facings,

And how high they once stood.

How they had been weathered by surf and time

Yet still remained.

 

Seagulls used to scour and pick for crab shells.

on the beaches below.

They’d peck

the remains until

they were bored,

and then fly away,

without a care,

on a breeze

they hardly knew,

from the bones they’d never remember.

 

Staring out over the breakers,

As the waves splashed over and over,

she would read the letters over and over,

searching, as if missing some key element

time or her own blind negligence had somehow overlooked.

She still wore the ring, when she went to the ocean,

She still wore the dress. She still thought of him.

She carried those letters on a breeze to forever,

The seagulls picking away at the remains of everything she needed to let go.

 

 

 

Chad W. Lutz was born in 1986 in Akron, Ohio, and raised in the neighboring suburb of Stow. His works have been featured in Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Dying Goose, Haunted Waters Press, and prominently on AltOhio.com, of which he serves managing editor. Chad currently works in North Canton writing web content for an online job resource website. An avid athlete, Chad runs competitively for a Northeast Ohio running club and swims in his spare time. He aspires to run the Olympic marathon at the 2016 games.