poetry corner

Une Poeme in three parts (but not in French)

I.

Attraction is a woman in a dress of maroon velvet
lined with blue silk and stars
The fabric falls open to the top of her taut, white thighs
She beckons me with sugar-sticky fingers
Her touch is electric.

And this is the seduction:
red silk beneath denim
the heady scent of cinnamon
and though you call it lust
I trust
you'll fall if given the chance.

II.

She always seems to find herself here
on the edge of something
the waves carve her another border
daring her forward
break through they say, in gentle wave-speak
but she knows they can become dangerous.

There is a photograph of a tiny girl
wide eyed in her mother's arms
heading into the water.
She has always known how to swim.
Solid land is the difficulty.
Sometimes she feels the ache,
the unbearable weight
of her ancestor's bones as they crawled from the sea.
She has always known how to swim
(but probably not well enough)
A hand takes hers
and she turns, returns
leaving fragile footprints
already being washed away.

III.

Autumn stills the house like nothing else
and in the silence the bones of last year's ghosts
clack like the lid on some forgotten pot
left too long on the fire
as water seeks its release in steam.
The ghosts, unlike the pot, not easily forgotten.
She sits in the sudden silence
remembering what she no longer has
holding hard to what she does.
She is often alone now
wrapped in a fading robe
cradling in aging hands a coffee
(touched with the heady scent of cinnamon)
for an artificial warmth.
She is haunting empty rooms,
sharing the silence
with Autumn
and the bones of last year's ghosts.
She is often alone now
(but she would call it free).