Burned Bridges by David Spicer

My fiery reputation precludes me.
I walk by a bookstore clerk and he frowns.

I clerked in a bookstore and frowned all the time.
My compulsive hobby was burning bridges.

I outgrew the hobby of burning bridges.
Now, I’m trying to rebuild those burned bridges.

Burned bridges are impossible to rebuild.
I thought of a friend—a burned bridge. She had died.

I mourned that friend, that burned bridge, gone forever.
Remorse lingers like the flames from burned bridges.

And I linger, looking back at the ashes.
I see that old friend waving and smiling.

I see other smiles and waves in the ashes.
My fiery reputation precludes me.

About the Poet:

David Spicer has published poems in Santa Clara Review,  Moria, Oyster River Pages, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares,  Ephemeral Elegies and elsewhere.  Nominated for a Best of the Net three times and a Pushcart twice, he is author of six chapbooks, the latest being Tribe of Two (Seven CirclePress). His second full-length collection, Waiting for the Needle Rain, is now available from Hekate Publishing. His website is www.davidspicer76.com