No Deadlines To Keep
No Deadlines To Keep
At a faraway airport, she sits delayed,
watching the clock and the ETA.
Smart from guessing, beginning to end,
about hope and missed phone calls from
forgotten friends.
No deadlines to keep, ever again.
She knows of a savior, that came long ago,
who she met in a hymnal, which she found in the snow,
fallen in a cornfield, ravaged by the wind.
No deadlines to keep, ever again.
She once was an actress and then a waitress,
serving plates of dreams to table of grace and sin.
Now she sits humming tunes once played
on electric violins.
No deadlines to keep, ever again.
She was lost on the turnpike when she was six.
Found by a woman that made homemade bricks.
Baptized in the river, where she learned her tricks.
Her lovers remember all of the hidden Septembers
when she danced to fires quenched by pictures
of multicolored teddy bears and clear blue gin.
No deadlines to keep, ever again.
I met her in Indiana, when I was just a kid.
She showed me everything, but kept everything hid,
speaking of airports, until the morning she left.
Now all her medication keep her on a solid dedication
to no longer live anyone else's dreams.
She looks at her palms, without any qualms,
and sometimes no longer sees the stains.
No deadlines to keep, ever again.
Dennis Kline (2014)
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