Epiphanies and Revelations by Matthew Milia

Epiphanies or revelations
Too tired to label
The fix to your situation
Ah, but you saw the sky
Today and tomorrow
You love me when I’m gone
But don’t you
Run off too far, though
It’s nice to
Have someone to miss

Surprise me once, show me you know me
If I was mistaken, I’m sorry

I ain’t looking to last
Where the sidewalk fixtures’
Shadows are cast
As rosebush songs paint me pictures
Such sterling mixtures of glory
I just want a love that will stay when I turn
My back to St. Lawrence, to see what
Torrents I can burn
So my love will learn that I love her

At the bottom of Dollar Lake is an old truck
And the boards from the bar where my folks first got drunk
And all kinds of litter that flickered and then sunk
To the shallows of our town’s lagoon
Where I say
“How could you love me
When I am so frightened
By the phantoms of my mind and how they are tightened
Around all that I find in this world that’s brightened
By a magic so tragic each day?”
Aw, but love don’t exist neath the realest of coffins
And real ain’t a place that we’ll have to dwell often
Epiphanies will tumble and soften till
Love’s all that’s left to be found

It’s the epitomes of revelations
You’ll all choose the latter
But be so much gladder
With your salvation in the sand
And the fear of sincerity is a disgrace
The shadows of your mind should not take the place
When the turquoise that you find is the kind of trace
That binds to the skin
Inside and within
The light that shines behind your face

Our heads are dead in the dread of tomorrow
And when the sky clears our fears will be hollow
Your suburbs are seasons darkening and sullen
The harbors are fleeting, the waters are swollen
The theater’s erupting, the midway is caving
The streets all connect in a way that needs saving
The parking lot trees are bending and rotten
And so you are too for the love that you’ve gotten
And forgotten
Epiphanies
You’ve forgotten