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Whats with the attitude?
Why do you subtract so?
It doesnt make sense.
No sense at all.

Due to the past,
I feel nothing.
I am not sensitive,
Only specifically.

Get used to it.
I dont love like I did.
Beyond blue eyes.
A pallid mask is hid.
I really hate it when a person, parent or friend becomes an *******.
here is little Effie’s head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when the judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid
waiting for something to rise
as the other somethings did—
you imagine His surprise

bellowing through the general noise
Where is Effie who was dead?
—to God in a tiny voice,
i am may the first crumb said

whereupon its fellow five
crumbs chuckled as if they were alive
and number two took up the song,
might i’m called and did no wrong

cried the third crumb,i am should
and this is my little sister could
with our big brother who is would
don’t punish us for we were good;

and the last crumb with some shame
whispered unto God,my name
is must and with the others i’ve
been Effie who isn’t alive

just imagine it I say
God amid a monstrous din
watch your step and follow me
stooping by Effie’s little, in

(want a match or can you see?)
which the six subjunctive crumbs
twitch like mutilated thumbs:
picture His peering biggest whey

coloured face on which a frown
puzzles, but I know the way—
(nervously Whose eyes approve
the blessed while His ears are crammed

with the strenuous music of
the innumerable capering ******)
—staring wildly up and down
the here we are now judgment day

cross the threshold have no dread
lift the sheet back in this way.
here is little Effie’s head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
I bit open a lie and it tasted like you.
I want to tell you about time, how strangely
it behaves when you haven't got much of it left:
after 60 say, or 70, when you'd think it would

find itself squeezed so hard that like melting
ice it would surely begin to shrink, each day
looking smaller and smaller - well, it's not so.

The rules change, a single hour can grow huge
and quiet, full of reflections like an old river,
its slow-turning eddies and whirls showing you

every face of your life in a fluid design -
your children for instance, how you see them
deepened and changed, not merely by age, but by

time itself, its wide and luminous eye; and you
realise at last that your every gift to them - love,
your very life, should they need it - will not

and cannot come back; it wasn't a gift at all
but a borrowing, a baton for them to pass on in
their turn. Look, there they are in this

shimmering distance, rushing through their kind
of time, moving faster than you yet not catching up.
You're alone. And slowly you begin to discern

the queer outline of what's to come: the bend in
the river beyond which, moving steadily, head up
(you hope), you will simply vanish from sight.
 May 2014 Giavanna Corriero
g
Rewind to the first day you
Asked me to marry you.
It was raining, I wanted to kiss you.

December of our first year married;
You woke me up every morning
To watch the snow fall.
I rolled my eyes as you
Watched like a child.
You looked at me the same way.

Our first Christmas together was
About the same. It was
Only two years prior to our marriage
And you bought me a necklace.
I wore it every day
Until the day you left.
I hope the river likes jewelry
As much as I did.

Fast forward to our
Second spring together.
You pulled the car over on the side
Of the road to pick a wild flower.
We were already running late.
We always seemed to do
Everything too late.

Fourteen and a half days later
You told me you wanted me
To buy a nice dress for myself
And meet you at a restaurant.
I told you no,
I had work in the morning.
You drank every night
For a month after that.

You sang to my small unborn baby
Bump every night before bed.
Our next trip to see our baby's face
Did not go as planned.
You never could get me out of that
Black dress after her wake
And your eyes matched it
Perfectly every day after.

Fast forward to the day before you
Asked me to sign the divorce papers.
We made love.
I cried and said "this isn't working."
You said "I know."

I could hear you cry from the
Other side of the bed
And your hands felt miles away.
I remembered the first time
You touched me this way,
Long before your hands
Were calloused.
We were Hell bent on doing it
And I could hear the same lack
Of hesitation in your voice when
You said you had to leave.

Flash back to the first time I told you
I loved you.
I said it too soon. You said it back,
I didn't expect you to.

You left your ring on the
Coffee table our last night.
Suddenly I missed the rings
Of condensation marking the
Table every night and the
Clanking noise your ring
Finger made against the beer
Bottles after every fight.

I wish I could have been enough
To stop you from drinking.
I remember when you drove away.
"Turn around and beg me to stay.
Turn around and beg me to stay."
You didn't turn around and
I did not stay.

I passed the garden we were
Married in on my way to the court
House to sign the final papers.
A couple was leaving, newly wedded.
I find irony in that.

A few years later I passed you
On the street.
It was snowing, you had that same
Look in your eyes.
You smiled at me, a distant
"I'm sorry," smile.
I nodded, but I could not smile back.
You see, I never stopped loving you,
But I was never sorry for
Letting you leave.

I still find your cuff links buried
In my jewelry box some days.  
This is the day I watched the
Locket you gave me
Sink to the bottom of a river.
I think you could find my
Hope lying there, too.

Remember the time you kissed me
In the rain?
First slow and timid, then
Passionate as if it was the
Last time we would ever kiss again.
I apologized thirteen times that day
For things that had
Not happened yet.

I think a piece of me knew all along
I would have to let you leave.
The day I said good bye
The words burned my lips
Like acid exactly like they did that day.
I said "I'm sorry."

Seven hours staring at empty
Beer bottles as you
Slam them on the table.
In fact, it's been months since
You slammed anything but beers
And I think that is where
We started to fall apart.

Three years since you left and
I cannot bring myself to love another.
I bet she is beautiful and
Kind and loving and
I bet she does not cause you to
Drink until you cannot feel.
Three years later and I realize now that
I will love you until I die.
 May 2014 Giavanna Corriero
g
I'll never forget the way the sun
Hits your eyes, but I've
Forgotten the shade of
Ocean they resemble.

I fell in love with the trail
Of flowers that led from
Your grandmother's garden and
To your father's old wooden
Front door, through the kitchen
We once danced in and into
Your bedroom.

On days I cannot forget you,
I scrub a little harder in the shower.
I'm sure you no longer have
Your fingertips lost somewhere
Between my pores
(Better safe than sorry,
Like you always said).

You left me breathless from the
Day you told me I never
Deserved what he had done,
To the day you told me I never
Deserved you, either.

I sometimes catch myself
Screaming your name
In my dreams.
Incredulity
     Is our *greatest enemy
.
The truth subjected to disbelief*.
One day it will be our downfall,
Then they'll sing tales
of how humankind
failed.
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