Waiting

Hope is the interval between the angry waves
that smash against the jagged shoreline
Or the speck of time between the penultimate note and the resolution
Absent when the tune is discordant 

It is the dandelion,
Its ray florets announcing their presence through a crack in the asphalt
Or puncturing the landscape fabric
that was laid there to keep it in its place

But hope’s foe offers easy terms
“A dollar down and a dollar a day” – easy credit.
No barriers to entry and an endless inventory
While hope flickers tenuously in the distance
Enveloped by the void and starving for oxygen

Sometimes, the asphalt is thick
Solid enough for the big trucks to use, gears grinding and air brakes hissing
But the cracks always still manage to appear
And the striving pregnant buds eventually find their way to the irrepressible light