by Meria Paidu

Created on: April 16, 2008

I have a Greta Garbo face but I fake the accent,
In my slippers at night, when I don't dare walk barefoot.
Bare feet on the landing, over pinpricks of silver,
From that shards of glass I let loose in my anger.

He makes love to me absently, the third of my husbands,
His mind somewhere else, his arms around me, and I close my eyes
See her, imagine what could be and leave. Escape
to the attic, to lines written on fine yellow paper.

He slumbers in the bedroom, my knees up to his chin
My body in his, around his, away - his child in my belly.
A child I don't want, a stone on my spine
In my bones, like the world on my shoulders.

I sit outside on the porch, my feet in the sand
Hair fallen to the floor, clumps dead gray.
Wind blown, rain falls and on the horizon,
A storm rages closer, thunder loud in my carcass.

Wrinkled skin like parchment folds over, white over black
Blueberry pie, pancakes like stars in the sky, that smell
Of victory, of my own illusion - unreal, surreal, invented
But so near now I can taste it.

The cradle I rock with one hand, the bed with the other
And will with every drop of rain the lightning to my door
The medium to be wrong, my instincts to be right.
And hope she comes for me.

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