Turning Circle

Before our glacial nights

where we slipped

over and away from each other

at indeterminate speeds,

and somewhere between those icy sheets

of your attic room,

you and I loved.

 

Long before the pain took hold

and pinned you beneath ghostly covers

as it had your mother,

we would hold each other and watch planes

turn tight circles,dipping below

the dry hills;

 

we kissed

like children would in those moments,

without fear of inhibition or loss,

our future stretching beyond

the sloping roof and shadowless walls

of the afternoon.

 

Yet out of the stillness you fell

like a heart-wounded songbird,

the poetry of your song silenced

beneath untied gowns and nights

of yellow morphine;

how your body

became a temple of sinuous tensions

and discreet chemical attacks,

your face beaded achingly

by each uninvited onslaught.

 

If I could,

I would tell you how each night

I turn to face your ghost,

beautiful yet strange

within my darkness,

 

as my lips mouth a prayer

but you,

 

unable to forgive.

 

Done