Love Story
I.
He lives alone
with her
and I suppose it suits
them both
for each a given room
built for something shattered
long ago, patched, imperfect
hanging stiff, a prosthetic
to protect
from the pain
from the pain
of being touched.
II.
But together
II.
But together
things get done.
The long illness of life
is a fog they
navigate with muted beams,
brassy horn of a crabbed
autonomy fussily sounding,
while traffic doctors mumble,
there should be a lane change here;
less sideways, more forward,
less sideways, more forward,
some turn
toward recovery.
III.
She lives alone
with him
in carved out rooms
that never touch,
her music mute
before
it drifts too far,
his face obscure behind print, the
picturebox that swallows his couch.
She only comes out
when he sleeps,
to look at the stars
to blind herself
with the fire, the moon,
a glass of cold stone-flavored wine
its petrichor the ash of auto-da-fé
on her tongue.
on her tongue.
IV.
In the mornings,
they laugh at cats,
penguins, politicians, fools;
make their way to town
for words and bread
point at the house for sale,
talk about the weather domed
over the chaos where independent
a delicate mechanism
still whirs, clicks and
joins the invisible
revolving
wheels.
~February 2014
posted for real toads
Sunday Challenge: Play it Again,Toads
Margaret Bednar once again brings three vintage toads' challenges out from the vault and asks us to reconsider them. I have chosen to write more directly than in my first attempt to the old Fireblossom Friday prompt called Lights!Camera!Love! where Shay asked us to tell a love story of two people that might be a movie.
Top Image: February, by Michael Sowa
May be protected by copyright~posted under fair use guidelines, via wikipaintings.org
Footer: Caravan, by Remedios Varo
May be protected by copyright~posted under fair use guidelines, via wikipaintings.org
