Wheels

The woman who broke her heart had red hair
And blue eyes--
A sunset over deep water.
With her head tilted back, she believed,
As the bloom believes in the bee--
She did not, could not, see it coming.

Feeling herself destroyed,
She became a woman of the earth, as the quiet ones
In graveyards are--
A bus station bohemian,
Far down the road ahead of any memory,
Alone, disappearing.

That is where she met the man,
Who counted out his life in silver blades--
She thought she could stand to be with him,
Since she wouldn't really care,
And so,
Then and there she poured herself into his emptiness
Like a jar of smoke.

Each night he sent the knives at her--
They seemed to come out of his bright white cuff, like bones,
As she turned on the target wheel.
Each night in front of a popcorn crowd,
He built a skeleton around her from fifty paces
And she became its face and heart beat.

"Do you love me?" he demanded sourly
In the small hours after a show,
And when she said "no", the next night he missed,
Twice, and cut her.
She knew that to stay meant being carved,
A bar of soap vanishing to satisfy his anger.

The buses are comforting in their way,
But now, back on the Greyhound highway,
She finds her vision empty;
Blank as tomorrow, without the flying knives,
Without anyone's body to be heart for,
Without her red-haired love with the deep water eyes.
___

picture by Metin Demiralay