This tapestry of life finally, at age 75, has frayed
at the edges
The trail of thread too embossed in the center
to unravel.
Patterns of irony, travesty, triumph, and disappointment
woven too tight to tear.
Love, commitment, the hand patting a little boy’s head,
faded to unclear.
Soon it won’t cover anything. Everything swept under it
will be exposed to footfalls and dust motes.
Someone, someday, will roll it up, find a garbage bag,
find a dump.
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His ninth full-length poetry collection is Tragedy in the Arugula Aisle (Arroyo Seco Press, 2025). His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize.
