Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
In the yellow and blue dawn of winter
I will come for her
My misty apparition
who fogs my eyes and senses
and comforts me with her chilled
wet kiss
She knows my secret sins
She’s lived my life
“Come in,” says Niagara
“The water’s fine”
I know it’s not true, it’s freezing in December
Look up from the Horseshoe Falls
see the Rainbow Bridge, Goat Island, the gaudy signage
Home…
Look down upon the frigid rapids
My misty apparition
who fogs my eyes and senses
and I wonder how it will be
to know the caress
of my sometime true lover
as I lapse gently inside her
and ponder my new address
Slipping into her grasp
suicide and marriage are one
no cold, no fear
just nostalgia
Source: The author, 2022. Of Sometime True Lovers was first published on All Poetry, 6/9/21, Written 10/31/98
Author’s note: While this appears to be about suicide in Niagara Falls, it’s really about what I owe to the city itself, the city that I grew up in and made me.
See Doug Smith ’s All Poetry site (Darknightofthesoul)
Doug Smith is a former Niagara Falls, NY resident