I like this poetess so much. This poem touched me in a deep core…I am posting the poem, and then linking to her original post as well.
Shyly, X. Tries Her Hand at Poetry the Morning After
Four hundred nights I must have watched you sleep,
The dying fire catching the gold in your hair.
Your sweet breath rose and fell and rose again
With the rhythm of your dreams I was not in.
I did not see you clearly, not at first.
Experience makes innocence seem weak.
Not until you fought beside me did I see
That you had steel in you and your own light.You were a secret I felt I had to keep.
I could not ever let you catch me stare
When you, eager, scratched the parchment with your pen
Or dutifully cut our dinner, gill from fin.
But it was the long spring nights that were the worst,
As I lay by the fire, cold and bleak,
Knowing my desire could never be
More than a whispered dream of warm delight.I could not know how time would make you weep.
The violence of my life you chose to share
Would take your light and heart and try to rend
Them apart, a battle you could not win.
Your pain, my fault; because of my past, cursed.
What changed it all was tragedy. We are Greeks.
We never take life easy. You and he
Married, deflowered, widowed: one day, one night.The poets say that what we sow, we reap.
I had to make it right. I could not bear
To see you in such pain, my more than friend.
My vengeance had little glory, was messy, thin,
A deed I had to do, although perverse.
And after, it was hard for us to speak
Of any of it. The silence between you and me
Crashed through the trees behind us like a kite.It took a few more months for you to steep
In your grief, to face the morning air
Without mourning his reaching of life’s end,
His power over you and its long romance.
You threw large stones into the watercourse.
You say you did not dream. Tears on your cheek
Kept my hand from touching your knee
To “comfort,” a self-deception I had to fight.Then, one evening I heard you moaning in your sleep,
Crying out my name, demanding more!
You were tearing at your clothes and then
Reaching for me. I felt my whole world spin.
I touched your face. I thought my heart would burst
As your eyes flew open, blushing that I could see
All of you now seeing all of meFinally! At last! And then, all night…
by Susan Spilecki 2015
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