the reckoning
after all is said
and done, we’re left
with flotsam and jetsam.
to have devolved
this much
was nothing
we reckoned for.
separately, we’d been
intact and got along
swimmingly, each
with the other, buoyancy
unimpeded and loss
of ballast nowhere in the calculation
but a reckoning,
unexpected, uninvited
found its way
to our respective hatches
and we were at its mercy.
of a sudden, we had neither
hope nor wish
for reconciliation or truce.
we’re long dispersed,
detritus excreted in our wake,
and have surrendered
the present tense,
in favor of ancient
unchanging history,
good for nothing but sifting
through for, at best,
the remnant of better days.
Philip Wexler
Philip Wexler lives in Bethesda, Maryland and is retired after a long career at the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Over 210 of his poems have appeared in magazines. His poetry books include The Sad Parade (prose poems), and The Burning Moustache, both published by Adelaide Books, The Lesser Light by Finishing Line Press, With Something Like Hope (Silver Bow Publishing) and I Would be the Purple (Kelsay Books), the latter 3 all published in 2022. He also organizes and hosts Words out Loud, a monthly spoken word series convened at the Compass Arts Center in Kensington, Maryland.