06-24-2017, 01:54 AM
They felt sugared bruises
ache inside their thighs -
emblems of the
crush
against picket-lines -
and artists' scars
along the tunnels of their throat,
places where protests
had opened up the flowers of their flesh.
And when a rope
encircled
them, slid around their waist,
it wasn't over,
altogether.
For a time they were
entwined,
they and that rope,
trailing one another along roads which,
once out of sight,
amassed dust by the truckload.
But no-one understood
when It got stuck in their eye,
when they wrestled with their lashes
till the jelly leaked and lost its flavour,
begged this rope
with the full moon in their shaking voice,
implored comprehension of the
itch
for noise, clamour,
but knew each time
they were lost in translation.
At the end of that rope
they found marigolds,
yellow, tight, rubbery.
They wore them wryly,
at first,
but it wasn't long before
the skin between the fingers
tinged,
before laundered clothes tumbled out of closets
yellow
where they'd once been black.
And the rest went by
without being seen,
not even felt.
The years turned over like a
sick dog.
That ache in the thigh
was found one day to be
rheumatism
from a million hours with sofa cushions,
and where once they yelled,
smiled as they hallooed,
they only rose for a
dishwasher, slashed in the sale.
ache inside their thighs -
emblems of the
crush
against picket-lines -
and artists' scars
along the tunnels of their throat,
places where protests
had opened up the flowers of their flesh.
And when a rope
encircled
them, slid around their waist,
it wasn't over,
altogether.
For a time they were
entwined,
they and that rope,
trailing one another along roads which,
once out of sight,
amassed dust by the truckload.
But no-one understood
when It got stuck in their eye,
when they wrestled with their lashes
till the jelly leaked and lost its flavour,
begged this rope
with the full moon in their shaking voice,
implored comprehension of the
itch
for noise, clamour,
but knew each time
they were lost in translation.
At the end of that rope
they found marigolds,
yellow, tight, rubbery.
They wore them wryly,
at first,
but it wasn't long before
the skin between the fingers
tinged,
before laundered clothes tumbled out of closets
yellow
where they'd once been black.
And the rest went by
without being seen,
not even felt.
The years turned over like a
sick dog.
That ache in the thigh
was found one day to be
rheumatism
from a million hours with sofa cushions,
and where once they yelled,
smiled as they hallooed,
they only rose for a
dishwasher, slashed in the sale.