The Poetry Marathon

I wish to meet in a museum 

One I have visited before 

Where I already have a favorite room 

Because there is a piece there that tugs at the heartstrings 

And I haven’t figured out just why yet…

 

There will be a bench 

Wooden slats that somehow fit the spine 

As I lay back 

I do this because I am comfortable 

Because I can move my body in this world 

Without external guidance 

Can stretch a little even 

Let my boots hang over 

Hit floor 

 

And my eyes are closed 

So I don’t see her coming 

Just feel a small warmth 

A different tug and pull 

In my right draping pinky

 

Bored? 

She will start  

And I’ll feel like a honey trap 

Lids stay shut 

Because here I am unbothered confident 

But I smile still 

Because here we are also not rude 

 

Not at all

I say 

And I start to wonder what she looks like 

I still see it here 

I explain 

Behind my eyelids 

The blues 

The lilies 

I am making sure I stared long enough 

For the image to burn 

This is how you rob museums 

This is how we keep details 

Until we don’t 

 

And then there is the trust fall 

No response 

I am the girl in the museum 

Unseeing 

And speaking to the ceiling 

Falling into embarrassment 

The bench dissolving until 

she sits 

And I am here again 

Held  

But not before one lid has peeked 

           There is shoulder bones under taught black and gray knit 

           Blonde just kisses their valley 

           Thick and straight 

           I see the hand holding jacket on lap 

          Just the back and wrist of it 

          Veins like steel over scaffold 

          With soft curtains that show middle age like a class act earned 

Close again because it feels safer

Safer because all I want is to keep looking  

 

Then the shuffle 

And she is lying here too 

I feel her shoulder greet mine 

Politely 

 

I picked one 

She says quieter now 

Let’s test this theory 

And then there is her breathing 

My chest stays loose 

My muscles unflexed 

Like they’ve lied by this side a million times before 

Been kept company by its warmth 

She smells of wood and lilly 

And I can feel myself commit the shallowest of drownings 

As the back of our hands 

somehow meet 

And I wonder if either of us had any say in it 

 

Here we leave the bench eventually 

And go on instead to memorize each other 

Here she is a masterpiece 

And I need not shift to keep her 

There is no burning to cling to memory a face that will allow itself shyly into photographs 

Will look back at mine over city cafes and wooden porch chairs 

Here I met her and she stayed 

Even after I let both eyes open. 

I am on my side centipede 

For the sobs have drilled to the core already 

Cracked and vibratoed 

I have fallen into the aftershocks 

The little trembles 

When the ache is deepest

Has dripped its way through my throat 

Rested on my chest 

Tripping over my lips as it leaves again 

 

A tear comes 

Slow and salt 

Paralells gravity a while 

Trickles to nose 

Makes a turn 

And rolls over the cheekbone 

My hand makes a request 

May I lift it asks 

Wipe this away 

So we can all stand 

Pretend better 

But sometimes 

We just need to soak. 

 

The tear moves slower now

Jaw-ward bound 

And I think 

Who am I to stop this journey 

Water is meant to move 

And I am meant to still

To feel 

To breathe in and out 

And only that 

 

These rules are ages old 

From the last thaw 

When the glaciers moved 

Carved and dripped 

Their way through the hardness of the world 

 

I have heard struggle described in diamonds

That we will all shine under pressure

But pressure is not the same as pain 

And a diamond pales 

In the sediments of a valley 

 

I exhale 

Let the hollows of me guide the tear a little faster 

Then it drops over auricle’s cliffs  

making corries of my smallest bones

Currents rushing to the ear drum

And they sound like truths 

And they sound like comfort 

And there is more to follow tear says 

 

When it is all done 

I let my lands slide 

Tilt my axis to the mirror

And see the paths still 

With their freckle deposits  

 

You are a landscape 

The soaked cheeks remind me  

This is how life grows.