~

i loved you like a yawn:

the tensening of my abdomen

when your hand found my hip

my legs flexed to keep from quivering

the way only once you called me honey

and the words found their way

directly to my gut, lodging themselves

there, singing themselves in your

cadence when i moved like harp strings

~

I was the figurehead moulded

to you like a ship your bluntness

solidity, unweathered,

a maiden voyage to this undiscovered

& unpeopled land because you’d never

seen eyes like mine or skin or tempers

like mine, your solidity & how you

would occasionally watch me taper

my fingers like a fan lifted to obscure my mouth

you panted at the delicate spray like trumpet

fanfare curving on to my palm as if I would

relax into my sculpted curves

that some famous sculptor had traced his hands

passing and repassing my shoulders and thighs the knife

almost concealed in his fingers I cling backwards

to you I seek the lighthouse but wooden

vocal chords cannot warn & call to you

and the sirens are insistent

~

you stopped me from tearing at

my wrists, scratching to draw blood or feeling, you hid

books under your jacket and revealed them like petals, stop,

the telegram of my feet tapping the floor to stem

the flood of everything I had for you

momentarily, hidden-tapestry concealed

revealed on my x-ray as a blip caused by a

floating cottage of dust, a daddylonglegs

hesitating over my heart; a smudge on the

outer plane of my hand from smoothing

across paper i called

you my blue.

Chloe Burns