Overread at Booth 1: Poem for August 8th

Poem for August 8^th, the Winter of our Contentment

 

Slip out and slip better

in the pattern balm,

the midnight spiders that you swallow in the callous keep

will keep you solid until the dawn.

 

You know better than to polish a wooden nickel,

You should have been taught how to tie your own shoes

but you never realized that Time has something nagging in store for you,

it’s called the scars of everyone who ever did you wrong.

 

There are breaths that you take that you never exhale,

they are the captured summer suns on afternoons where

stars fell through the leaves of the trees,

you captured them, palms up and open wide,

where landed the kisses of the lovers you were when you were young lovers

and all love was new and every touch was pure light, pure electric spark,

pure energy, pure life.

 

And now, the touch is merely the comforting warmth of the cinders

of a fire that you and your lover have slowly watched slumber

as you have retold your stories and reshared the jokes that always make you

laugh together and the smiles that you share, your laugh lines are on your lover’s mouth

and your lover’s crows feet grace the corners of your eyes

and you share the same breath and you share the same smile and

you share the same forehead and you share the same face,

 

and this is the conclusion of the deal, this is the whole bailywick,

this is the culmination of desperate nights and ruinous days and

anxiously awaiting through every moment of “holy fuck, is this worth it?”

 

and the embers of that fire and the toes that you touch underneath the

blanket answer you.

 

“yes.

 

yes,

 

holy fuck,

it was all worth it.”

MR

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NOTE: Often I will overhear or mishear some phrase, which will start a poem, and then by the second stanza the poem will be something completely different and will finish, having nothing to do with the original line.  I often wonder if I should just chop off the first line.  Probably should, but for some reason, I leave it, because even though non-sensical, it contains whatever seed that engendered the rest.