by Katherine Gotthardt Through your ageless eyes, I understand your replies to what you most fear: trembling from the tip of the fuse to the cannon’s opening, the rip in the air of civil war, tear in the veil that lies: ‘there is but one truth.’ You can never know for sure where the dying …
Love sometimes requires retreating,
backing up,
reversing the pace
that brought us into spaces
where nothing was ever comfortable,
no memory or seat we could share,
no reserve preserved for those worst hours,
She did not know to engage in such things would leave everything familiar flailing, everything worthy slapping itself against stucco walls and memories. How could she have? Rooms like these stitch their own lips shut, hold their beaten secrets close, squeeze bits of breath and laughable hope into air packed tight with pain. No, this …
Every second, you give up a little more, stare at the space between us, mumble one-word answers, refuse your favorite sandwich. I understand. It’s part of the sickness, part of what stitches our suffering together. No pill or doctor can cure us. So I sit with you as you empty the last bits of yourself …
I don’t know what you think of white, but tonight, I see azalea petals outdoing the dark, and I think, you know, I’d love to have a clothesline. Yes. I’d love to amble between shirts and sheets, get caught up in the touch of everything clean. I’d love to play Goddess, wrap myself in white, …
