Her belly is hollow.
Once it was filled with him,
but she has been excavated
and spun into emptiness.
.
Her head is hollow.
Once it was filled with him,
but she has been desolated
and spun into heaviness.
.
Her life is hollow.
Once it was filled with him,
but she has been devastated
and spun into enviousness.
.
Her hope was hollow.
Once it was filled with him,
but she has been extricated,
and spins into readiness
In the hallway
between kitchen and bedrooms
the chef knife catches the light.
Which poodle is plotting
nefarious exploits?
Should we be locking
bedroom doors at night?
The layers
speak of neglect
and distraction,
of time passing.
Traces of us
settle on ledges
and I am loath
to find a cloth
and wipe us off.
Grade eight.
Horror.
Mother is her substitute teacher today.
“Do not
acknowledge
that you know me!” she hissed.
But when her name was called for
attendance, and teacher-mother
looked around for
whichever student would raise her hand,
she glowered,
unhappy
with anonymity.
So you packed your canoe,
left a good man,
gave away that puppy,
you’d given to
those good boys,
those sweet little boys,
and rowed off to find yourself
on a river of their tears.
I hope the discovery
proves worth it
in the end.
Grey weight
drags me down
velcro-ed to cement
hobbled like a donkey
held together
by hope.
The fiery flame of your hair
declares you.
You flash with fury and
unleash lashes of your tongue.
Light catches
in the disapproving flips
of your flickering locks,
We witness your scorching glare.
Viewed from a distance,
a bonfire is a beautiful thing
and I occasionally enjoy ginger snaps
while watching the fire.
.
.
Ah, it’s a stereotype, I know, but sometimes folks walk right into their cliché and live there.
He relies on the strength
of her heart strings.
She winds them around him
to hold him together
when he might rattle apart
in the shaking, quaking times.
When she is weak and broken,
when she can not stretch her arms,
wide enough
to wrap heart strings around him,
he trembles and crumbles
apart.
When she is weak and broken,
he does not consider
that he could pretend
to be strong.
He could hold her heart strings,
and spin into her.
“A man like Matthew never frees himself of the shadows completely, but perhaps it is necessary to embrace the darkness in order to love him.”
~Deb Harkness in Shadow of Night
.
.
He thinks that he is so hard to love
he polishes his prickles
scours his scowls
brushes those glowering brows
as if this gruff front will keep his heart whole,
and impervious to the heat of a warm embrace.
But she wears fireproof gloves,
confronts him with frankness,
and forces him to face his fears.
She wraps his arms around her and
shows him his image in the mirror of her love.
Shawn L. Bird 