In case I someday claim thee
Wait upon the farthest etching of stone into ocean
In case my sickened frame drags itself through grit and sea-spray
For I may find myself in palms of flesh torn from dragging this carcass across peaking cliffs and shards of sea-glass

*Wait there, but do not call out

You cover your ears with your small, yet strong, hands,
But still hear her heartbreaking cries

You seal your eyes shut to block out the black shadows,
But still in the darkness you lie

You stuff up your nose so you can’t smell the blood,
But just downstairs the copper smell lingers

You cover up skin; form a shield for yourself,
But can still sense the fear in your fingers

You hold it all in, can survive being numb,
Never give in our let out a scream

Life begins to seem normal, teach yourself to forget,
Until you re-enter your dreams

It came slowly
Like a languid
Dallying summer breeze
So that the world felt no less sweet
When the wind slipped over.

And like it came it went
Into the scorching heat of summer
Into the peril of fall
And finally into the tragedy that is
Winter


But it left so slowly that the seasons
Blended into one another
And later it could not be told where it
Was summer or winter in which
It happened

It was more that almost
Fall and almost winter and almost spring
Were just interchangeable place marks
On the grueling,
Slow road of loss

Xenia has never felt so low,
Xenia has bathed and scrubbed,
but still feels unclean.

She wants him unsexed
from her body
his kisses removed
from lips and skin,
and those places within.

She wants to wash him away,
watch all aspects of him ,
drain down the plughole
with a big slurp,
feel her flesh tingle
with cleanness,
but she still senses him there
on skin, in hair, in her memory,
he’s still there.

Xenia wants
to unkiss his kisses,
untouch his touches,
his caresses. She sits and broods,
thinks of past times,
of him and those days,
those deeds done.

Xenia wants to be reborn,
be as new, be unaware
he existed or exists,
how long and big
her want to happen
and not lists.

She recalls
his blows, his punches
to out of the way places
(he never hits faces)
his cruel torments,
foul words,
poking finger,
poke poke poke,
the endless
taunting joke.

She feels so unclean,
so tainted, so used,
so undone.

There’s a bird singing
from outside her window,
a church bell rings,
from next door
a baby cries.

She closes her eyes,
something within her
hunches up and dies.

I kissed you under the light of a tv screen.
Your lips were stale.
You told me to wait, said
ripening takes time, dear.
I waited.
and now
that my blood walks like a wooden ghost
through the cobwebs of these dusty veins
now
that my bed is tired of listening
to the blank stares of my bones
now
that time's body is decaying
so slowly beneath my eyes
now
I think
I don't want to kiss you
anymore.