Two Poems // Katharine Coles

[iatrogenicmyth.livejournal.com]

Before Parting

Neither of us can guess if they’ll hurry
dusk along, those clouds that have loitered
all afternoon over the rooftops. From our window
the row of backyards appears, and one by one
sparrows lift from the trees and abandon

themselves to wind. No empty cupboard
sends me out in this weather to market,
but a restlessness, the storm,
and your notion of apples

completing a white bowl, candlelight
adrift on their skins. On the table, only that
lies between us, between our two knives
parting the meat; and after dinner we watch
every other moment the sky open

into fragile light. For those short illuminations
we hover near the window. We want each other
to believe that distance can’t change us.
The sparrows also rustle, nervous,

returning to the eaves. When we pass them
over each others bodies, our hands hesitate
as they never have, as if we considered
for the first time, what might happen
to anything that leaves our fingers.

Letter from a Friend on Her Anniversary

As always in fall I dream the house burns
and I walk toward him all night through flaming rooms

leaving you behind as if you were myself
calling me back. Sometimes I sit with him

all night on the lawn, watching the planets
and remote stars keeping their violence

at such a distance. We wait
until daylight. Across the street, girls arrive

in pairs for early service, their pale eyes still
and wide, looking past us, past the church,

away from this world, bright with longing.
They don't need to see how autumn burns

their city, across the foothills, the horizon,
the cold sky. This world is nothing to them.

They will never die. We pull down the last of the bottle
and think perhaps we could sleep soon.

He touches my cheek, the bruises
still rising as they did that night

when I told you it doesn't matter.
Believe me, I don't shy

from his hand. I wait for it
to coax a blush, a bruise, blood

where the skin gives. It's all the same
in love. In the house, the drapes

lift as in a breeze, our figures shadows
of the flame. If I turned and ran

what could I save? Only my body, dry tinder
that catches for him. My good friend,

for him, for the one right touch,
I will lie to you. You know I have always been bad

at my life, and that it is all I have.

Comments

[go-teen-angst.livejournal.com]

I really like this. Thanks for posting.