new light comes early -
low and uncertain
- cold and unsurely

slowly

winter is waning -
fading her darkness
away

- begins a new day.

921

If it had no pencil
Would it try mine—
Worn—now—and dull—sweet,
Writing much to thee.
If it had no word,
Would it make the Daisy,
Most as big as I was,
When it plucked me?

the carpet was her friend  
its woven pile stitched by a Java descendent
just for this sparkling occasion, or a thousand others  
when she slithered across it  
to find the crystal goblet,
or porcelain bowl      

the night began with promise
a phone call from him, or the other him
saying he would be there after dinner
when it was night enough to enter
under cover of darkness  

last time he had entered on the sofa,
though she didn’t remember anything
but rolling onto the floor, and waking the next morn
rug burns on her back, dry tracks of him on her thighs  
and the carpet to the door    

she had asked for more,
more of him, more of the wine, more of the night
that came and went like he, without so much
as a by your leave  

doubtless there would be
other nights, when they would turn off the lights
and sink as one, in a silken simmering sea
together to find treasures
on the ancient floor…  

more likely,
in her world of more,
he would walk away again  
her left draped in sweat,
and the familiar scent  
of disappointment

It's nice when two hands fold down sheets
to ruin what was just made
for everyone to see but only one to touch
the canvas with endless sides
allowing us to trace each other
until the outlines become permanent
on that wrinkled sheet of
an unwritten story

There were no name tags to save the spot
that was seldom departed from yours
though I would have liked to take in
the heat of your exhaustion one more time
or notice how you panted after you braided our
outlines into one connected tie, showing defeat by
allowing me to slip into a coma
while you grazed that beating drum
trying to slow it down to show me
what we had just drawn.

Neither were artists but both craved creation
even if it was just sculpting what we had
into a crumbling statue to tell people
we were okay with living in a space that had
nothing to offer

Looking at pictures of your ex
on Facebook at three o’clock
in the morning never helped anyone
my mother says with her bittersweet
chocolate voice flowing
through the phone.

But she can’t remember
the time when he took me to the fair
and won me a sickly carnival fish
swimming in circles, banging
its head on the glass
of a too-small fishbowl
filled with icy blue water.
We named him Bear
so he would grow
big and strong
fed him all the love
we could muster up.

The best we could give
was an old plastic cup
much too small for love
to grow the way it needs to.
I looked into the fish’s blank eyes
and saw a piece of me
I had not seen before
and in the morning
there he was belly-up,
eyes blank as before.

He said sometimes
that's just what happens
when you love someone
too much.
He was right.

Blood washed away
Skin all healed
My puckered flesh
Like twisted kisses

These scars
Across my body
Like braille
For the broken hearted

Fingertips
Grazing my legs
As if reading the cause
For my pain

There's no need to speak
For words
Are not needed
To tell my story

-ARI