Oct/Nov 2011 Poetry |
Mosaic artwork by Laura Robbins
A Love Story That Is Not Mine
You meet someone when you are growing your
hair out. You shed bobby pins as you dance. The party is hash-speckled, the night like a charged balloon
about to be released. He paints a nativity sceneon your arm and kisses your jaw. You pray
it is miscalculation. The love that ensues isfeline. You are determined now to be a deity, a thousand
Aztec shrines in face of his crooked circles. But springcomes and he spills tequila on your dress. Love
steels you and you visit a grotto together. When you pointto a shadow, he calls you damaged goods. You laugh:
it is a vacant sound. When you fill out comment cards,you use words like limp and dispirited. The bed as prison,
the kitchen as wasteland. Pasta sands your throat.A turquoise necklace and a rotten apple adorn the
sink the morning he leaves. You spend weeks writingchecklists, fat azure words. The paper reminds you of
egg yolks. Your loss bristles. Your hair is shorn.