Concrete

By Clifton Snider

For Robin Williams

Layers of concrete,
rough, smoothed,
hardened
over the decades,
smothering love.
Through a small hole
the spirit gushed
like Old Faithful,
a marvel of hot reliability
his way of returning
the love.
Fun, funny, deadly serious–
the voices bubbled and burned
hiding disease (booze,
powder, Parkinson’s),
the weight only cement knows.

Layers of concrete
cover a festered stillness,
emptiness
between the explosions. They
slowly crowd the hole,
this concrete no mason ever poured.

No way out,
the breath squeezes away
all the love.
Then stillness
and release,
the concrete
all gone.