At Breakfast

 

at breakfast

your smile

made me want to smash it

as bravely fragile things

sometimes do.

at lunch

I called you

like climbing Everest

because it is there

and like a metronome

because it always has.

At dinner

I made something nice

that our son wouldn't eat.

I said,

starve then.

you said,

what would you like instead?

At midnight

you wanted it

but I

kissed the dog,

told him I love him

and rolled away from you

like a pearl

from a broken strand.

______

shared with WGO? open link

Desire, In Tones of Orange & Rust

Hi, pay attention, it's only me--
the steampunk librarian of Born-to-Lose Street
writing down alternate endings on the backs of envelopes,
the backs of surrogate lovers, the flip side of receipts...

Here's the door of my bedroom, six inches off the floor,
all my darlings trip out and fall like leaves.
Orange is the color that us Irish women love, it goes with green
and so we spend eternities dropping our flame-hair from the high branches of trees.

I never said I was stable,
or nice,
or worth the trouble,
all I said was you would get something rare.

Enough bullshit. I've trimmed my lips back with a peeler from a kitchen drawer,
until now I can only speak truth and all my old popularity is gone.
I'm the futuristic poet chick of By-Invitation-Only Twilight Bower,
and my dreams are in tones of wild and wood: berry-red, leaf-jade, rust and fawn.

I've been through men,
been through women,
been through solitude and I like that best;

But when I saw the way the light landed soft upon your cheek,
I fissured, I trembled in spite of myself, and thought, "Could there yet be
a fire so patient as to unwind itself at last, 
late-born (poor fool), late-kept and late-blessed?"
______

For Kerry's Dylan challenge at Real Toads. I was inspired by the song "I Want You."

 


 

Bedtime Story

Have you ever tripped at the top of the stairs,
to find you weren't at the top of the stairs,
but in bed
startled awake?

Have you ever watched a girl in sailor dress and shoes,
a spinning ballerina in sailor dress and shoes,
on the slick rocks
by the side of the lake?

I dreamed of blonde hair spread on the water.
I dreamed I was running, screaming,
by the side of the water,

then I was awake,
destroyed and
gasping.

______

for Mama Zen's Words Count at Real Toads. I blew past the word count. Forgive me, MZ!

inspired in part by Lauren Belfer's novel "City Of Light", which my BFF Hedgewitch so kindly gave to me.