|
I Only Pray For Them When They're Gone
by Anna Ter-Yegishyan Imagine this: Sitting side by side on our new taupe leather couch (The color that falls on your face when the sun sets) The fan on my left, blowing soft air Your splintered fingers on my hem With the rouge tips The weather outside, unheard of. Sterilizing me like a furnace I’m finally brave enough to look outside the blinds But I can’t feel my legs. In front of me, a bouquet of candles Our blood trickling like steps on a staircase Your temper, beating graciously like rocks chucked in a stream How you grab me, tranquil, hard, fully I need two bodies, I think To understand this Compensate it, use it, feel it. Imagine this: You’re drinking coffee Without milk You’re massaging your knuckles While I’m squeezing oranges You come up behind me Like a wave, too expansive, unexplored Too tall for my liking. I find it appealing Strange Like fig-sized fists Your mouth’s cutthroat graze on my neck I am just the neighbor’s lawn The children’s merciless excuse for laughter The vulnerable sign on a storefront that shakes when the wind truncates I barely have a backbone Since you mowed me Straight edged, poised, refined Since you kneaded me Until I had the face of a sculpture, The one you admired. More often than not I pray for what I’ve already lost That which is futile That needs no hope That merits no salvation By the bed I’m stooped to my knees, I say your name Half whispered The way knights would pray to gods. |
|
