A tragic fable.
* * *
A Memory
I still
recall
The day she
came to lie beneath me.
I pretended
not to notice
The ocean
waves
The wind made
of her long, loose hair;
I could see
she wasn’t there for me.
Firm-planted,
I stared at the sky.
It wasn’t
until I heard the laments
Rip-tiding
within her
That I cast
my gaze down
To where she
muffled her sadness into the earth.
I made no
sign;
I simply
stood,
A stock-still
sentinel,
That she
might avail herself
Of my quiet
protection.
She touched
me as she rose,
Her
scrabbling fingers finding the crags
In my rough
and wizened skin.
I confess
that in my deep-rooted places,
I curled with
excitement and fear
At her soft
attentions.
Lonely things
feel such a thrill at being touched.
Without even
giving her name,
She grappled
me,
Clutching and
grasping,
Gasping as
her sobs broke over
Her
poorly-constructed levies.
Did she know
that already,
I could have
lived
On her glance?
In one of my
outstretched arms,
I rocked her,
Like the soft
back-and-forth
Of a pond
post-storm.
She clung to
me,
And I naively
planned
A forever of
holding her.
She took in
long, unconfident breaths
As the raging
current slowed within her;
She no longer
watered me.
I
shivered
With a
peaceful, whispering rustle
And supposed
that this
Was how we’d
go on.
I didn’t see
her face.
Though I
would keep her from stumbling,
I didn’t know
she’d let herself fall.
The knot she
tied with her tear-wet fingers
Seized me in
a taut embrace,
And the
ground
Seemed to
wash out beneath me
As her grip
receded
And she
cascaded down
With a
sickening wrench.
Even then,
With the life
wrung from her,
She held fast
to me still.
She rippled
in the breeze
On the end of
the death cord
That bound me
to her.
I folded
inside myself
And tried not
to wither.
She’s long
gone now,
But cut me
open
And you’ll see
the atrophied rings
That were
choked
By her
embrace.
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