Tag: marriage

Spring

~ SW Altair ~ 7 Comments

Even when we talk, we share
between us an infinite silence.
Beneath all the small words we give
each other, “how was your day?”
“look, the sun is setting.”
there is a silence as patient as
the warm soil of a spring garden
under which seeds of desire sleep.

Restless

~ SW Altair ~ 1 Comment

After he’d gone to sleep,
she stared at the blank space
between his shoulder blades,
and she saw swirling galaxies
of thousands of nameless stars
bursting to be discovered.

Sometimes she wished him
a brave explorer, a curious
poet, a hopeless romantic.
Sometimes, deep into the night
when she couldn’t fall asleep
she wished him someone else. 

Time of Evening

~ SW Altair ~ Leave a comment

After work she went to the store
to pick up coffee filters and diapers,
a carton of eggs and 
a bag of day-old raisin bread. 
The tomatoes were on sale that day,
At the canned goods aisle she forgot 
what she needed to get from there.
Was it cream of mushroom or baked beans?
She stood there quietly for a long while, 
trying to remember,
how did she end up here?

Back home there are dishes 
to be washed, trash to be taken out.
A small child crying.
A man who pretends not to hear.
And the sun is quietly disappearing
behind its own purple haze.

Two grocery bags, 
heavy as iron in her arms, 
and she was miles
and miles away from home. 

The Storm

~ SW Altair ~ 2 Comments

The ocean gathers himself,
shoulders raised, crazed waves
spewing from his brutal mouth, swallowing stars
as he comes. Shaken, stirred,
the shore quivers to receive him, her love.
Her lips still bruised by his gnawings, but there she goes –
there she goes into the rushing beast of the night.
In the lives of those who love each other,
the storm always come too sudden. Quick as whips,
the lightnings tear the sky in shreds; wounded
shreds to be sewn back together
by the red moon and a watchful owl.
They already know. They always knew. When it is over,
the ocean – his violent heart broken –
laps soft kisses at the shore’s fingers,
knees, dreams and never ever again. In the lives
of those who love each other, the morning after the storm
always promises to brighter; brighter than
yesterday; brighter than all those days
that furl into remorse; nameless remorse
born in the name of love;
the kind of love
that makes us rage, and destroy;
destroy everything we love.

The Island

~ SW Altair ~ 4 Comments

On a warm Wednesday I went to Ellis Island alone. That morning I poked the yoke of my husband’s sunny-side-up, and burnt his toasts on purpose. On hands, on knees, on chafed discontent, I crawled all the way to Miss Liberty’s crowned head. I’ve often had dreams like this. Blue veins of oceans pumping salt-water into my wounded canoe. I shall never make it to her alive, I’ve traded my paddles for the low simmering kettle expectant of boiling so I could thaw this damn chicken for the dinner party where I shall be red-lipped, high-heeled and properly elusive. But I shall never make it to her alive, not this moment when the jungle-red sun has been hushed, and my soapy hands are clasping the soiled collar of an ill-fitted and tedious shirt with such stubbornness. I scrub it into moonrise whiteness, so white that I could almost start over in my weightless sleep. My dream takes me to the island – the stone – lipped woman married to the hands of the mason who sculpted her into perfect stillness. I touch her bare petrous toes, they are cold as my own. She is close – so close that the burning torch in her hand could almost be mine.

 

Originally published in Sweet Tree Review, Winter 2016.