The condition
They say that time heals all wounds,
but that’s just the nice way
to say,
Some day you will forget enough to
stop hurting.
Everything you once thought you could
never live without –
will eventually be gone –
and the memories
will follow
until
all that is left is an empty folder in the filing cabinet of your subconscious.
The smell of your dog’s fur after a bath.
The color of your grandfather’s eyes.
The song your grandma sang to you so tenderly when you couldn’t fall asleep —
All lost.
Memories of memories,
which perhaps
make a cameo appearance in a dream – where a vaguely familiar woman
passes you on the street
as she pushes a baby carriage and
hums a tune that is strange and forgettable.
-kc, 1/30/12
“Kiss”
I have never kissed a poet on the lips.
No mouths lingering on each other,
like delicious alliteration—
juicy emphasis to tantalize even the most
illiterate listener.
The spoken words of many a wordsmith
filled my imagination
with scintillating fantasies
of two poets cupped mouth over mouth,
tasting each other
as a food critic would savor
and name
each morsel.
Maybe I was selfish—
wanting to be the one to
paint our tangles and twists of arms and lips
into neat lines,
pretty words and luscious stanzas.
Not wanting to share the space for the telling.
Maybe I was scared—
fearing my touch was less than noteworthy,
my tongue too dry for stories.
Silenced by the clashing of teeth.
Instead, I dream of kissing poets.
Every brush of our lips,
flicks of our tongues and gentle moan of surrender
being archived in a chapbook carried by a college student
in the inner lining of her trench coat,
accidentally grazing her breast
like the ghost hand of a lover
she has never met.
-kc, 7/14/08