I crack open your poetry

rib by rib

dip my tongue

into its sticky heart

taste

what no one can touch –

your voice

kisses my sin

I blush

 

Love’s Labours Lost

 

You are standing in my bedroom doorway

with crooked nose and grin.

Surprisingly, you are 17

with bare, muscular arms

(football arms) and

a full head of dark curly hair;

then suddenly

you are 29

fatter in the middle

thinner in the hair;

then 45,

the years heavier still.

You must be a trick of light

or of memory –

you are not here at all.

(You are long gone.)

Only the doorway is the same.

 

I curl myself up like a fist

clutching a pillow to my chest

as if it were you

almost

alive and breathing

 

My heart clenches

and cramps

squeezing

a dark stone

over and over

 

I breathe out

releasing a howl

wet and

hair-raisingly

primal

 

I breathe in

release

breathe in

release

rocking myself to sleep

 

 

© Cynthia Linville