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I don't want to fall asleep under
charcoal skies
or wake in an empty bed, my mouth full of ash.
The place where you rested is suddenly cold,
vacant as a parking lot where no one sings,
where no one meets for heated groping
in the back seats of cars. Why is there
a bowl of red apples rotting on my table?
Did I forget to eat? Neglect to toss them out
along with verses I scribbled on the backs of napkins
when we were in love?
I have had my fill of all I once longed for.
I'm as cynical as my mother who rubs
green gel on her permed hair. I line up bobby-pins
on my bureau and remember the night
you stabbed my nipple with a pencil
because I stole a glance over your shoulder
and saw the first draft of your note
telling me goodbye.
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This house is equal parts blood
and stone.
It's mine now, but not entirely.
Walls collect sound. Mine retain voices.
At night, I hear the cricket's black song
rise through cracks in warped floorboards.
The sound doesn't drown quarrels
recorded in the woody grain. I clean
every crevice, but stones hold stain.
Blues tend to fade without dissolving.
What is left is hardly a shadow.
I find persistence where least expected.
Mold grows in dark corners.
I listen hard, strain to hear bread sprout,
an event deafening in its silence.
My lover planted poppies in the window boxes
before she left. They wilt in mid-day sun.
How much water do they need?
If I ever knew, I've forgotten.
Set in fields, poppies survive.
Nature strengthens by withholding.
Perhaps it's the same with a woman.
Withhold love, watch how far she'll go to find it.
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