Tennis Courts
June 1, 2016
1. What did you make before you were gone? What would I remember? The latchkey fireflies on the ceiling of the schoolbus. The impressions on a courtyard’s grass in a wet heat, like the shading of a helicopter’s wings. The last branch that broke before we knew that we had gone far enough. Your visage, like a religious painting. The breath of the tungsten above our heads and the avocado of the![]() cream in an amplifier. |
2. The tattoo in the thatching below your breast, of iodine and ink; of pin and pencil. I might not know what we are for, but I do know that when my cheeks get red, I would like to give the color to you. I said the things which made me feel less lonely, but were you alone? I couldn’t tell. The trembling crest and the flowing cleft and the spaces and places that I didn’t know, do not know, and all the other parts that make a woman. Georgia O’Keeffe went blind and Frida Kahlo died three deaths and you are alive. Who was I on those tennis courts that I didn’t do more than feel sorry for what I might do? The moonlight was wet and the water was water and I felt alright. I wore that night’s mosquito bites like how some people in Egypt marked their doors with lamb’s blood. I thought you wanted to be eaten. |