When it opens, I hike the trail like everyone else.
Coney Island to Bailey’s Bay
sparkles like a winter day arriving after furious gales
surprising with its glorious skies
displaying blues from lapis to sapphire.
But as I reach the bridge and cross
near Fractious Street
it captures me
that sly attacker:
loss.
And suddenly each blue
is pale and leached
like ice stale in the fridge –
cold and bleached and fractured.
And yet again
that grasping shadow
steals my breath
kidnaps my thoughts
diverts my sense
and leaves me hollow.
Perhaps the mind can pilot where it will
and hijack what we know is fact
until, absconding with the unmoored heart, persuades
that bright is pale
that light is shade
that blue is grey
when the uninvited pain invades.