The Lily from the Rose

1
Nymphaea caerulea,
like pale blue smoke hanging from your lips,
and rivers running beneath your skin
A dab of essence oil at the hollow of your throat,
or the delicate lines of your wrists
Such fragile wrists
You would protest in pain as I tugged and tugged,
wanting you to play with me
No hand could pluck you from your watery rest
An Egyptian sacrament,
a divine province
There was no room for me

2
She has freckle on the middle toe of her right foot
I had forgotten that, but saw it quite clearly
Boney toes grappling anxiously with lush grass,
soles so dry they crack against pervading sunbeams
Watching her feet is easier than seeing her face

She can't sit still again
We both know what that means
Coming down, going up
One or the other, and far away from me
The truth hanging, an unfinished game between us
Upturned checker boards or cheating at Hungry Hungry Hippos
It's easier to play Solitaire than to lose to her

My eyes hang onto her toes like crooked lifeline
Deciphering each gnarled sentence in skin,
decoding how two so similar could fall so far apart
when our lives stopped being parallel

That freckle is the one piece of skin I remember
from before
A familiar mark,
a spot where we could maybe reach each other again
A bridge
Except, I have waited on this bridge before
and even today
you laugh about the knife edge you walk

I can only think
You're playing a game again
You're walking a blade
You're gonna get cut, and your toes will be severed from your foot
and the one thing I hang onto
will fall

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ChocolateSushiCouture- Photo shoot, Spring 2009

Image
I never thought that on a rainy spring day I would be in a studio in downtown Chicago with a cute little assistant shyly rubbing bronzer into my legs. He was so shy, in fact, that he couldn't continue up to my thighs. (A fact made obvious later when my skirt hiked up and the skin was pale enough to blind Helen Keller.) Nor did I think that I'd have an exuberant stylist (see below) with his hands up said skirt, and down my shirt as well. ("Don't worry honey, this means nothing to me.") Ah, it's a good life I discovered just a scant few months ago. My friend, plus-size model Teslyn Butler , who I met at a commercial shoot, recommended me to a local designer named Niehla Ollie who was in dire straights for a Caucasian, curvy model. After sending a few snapshots through email, Niehla agreed to use me for a small photo shoot. I was folded into an enthusiastic embrace in her apartment and immediately put into make-up while I learned the basic ins-and-outs of plus
Read more

Oblivion

Orgasms splinter me Gasping darkness tilts into oblivion I am a thousand different breaths on the other side The distance mounts between us I cannot tell you that making love is suicide I don't want to die
Read more

Never at the Same Train Stop

Riding on the "L" from Evanston, way up on the northside and at the end of the Purple Line, (For non-Chicagoans, it's about as far away from my house as you can get.) my hip is throbbing from my second round with circus class and my head is spinning from therapy. As I get closer to the southside I can feel some of the tension leaking away and I know that soon I will be home; I can put ice on my ass and stomp around in frustration. (Well, limp around animatedly in frustration, anyway.) I'm sunk into my hoodie and pretending I'm the only one on the train when a gaggle of teenage girls sit in my vicinity. I keep my eyes averted but tune my ears in, prepared to be irritated/entertained by their conversation. Their voices take on the important edge of people who are convinced they should be listened to, and lets face it, who doesn't love hearing teenagers fling their hormones at each other? One girl in particular stands out to me because she's wearing a strip
Read more