Michael Boccardo

Melancholia

Moonless, I orbit

                                                                         alone. See

how swift the oceans

                                                           recede, these rivers

               strangle? How regret

                                                                                       solders what’s left

  of the sky?

                                                                         By morning the stars

 will all bleed out, the night                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                  a wound undone.

                              Give me a reason

                                                                                                                   not to ascend this myth

of bones & teeth,

my lips a hymn

                                                                        for the sun to stain.

Show me how

                                                                                       this life is worth

              bursting into flame.

Michael Boccardo’s poems have appeared in various journals including Kestrel, storySouth, The Inflectionist Review, Screen Door Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, Iron Horse, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Comstock Review, Nimrod, Cimarron Review, and Best New Poets, as well as the anthologies The Power of the Feminine I: Vol II and Poetry Goes to the Movies. He is a multiple Pushcart Nominee and a finalist for the James Wright Poetry Award. He resides in High Point, NC, with two rambunctious tuxedo cats. Additional work can be found at www.michaelboccardo.com