Author Information
Heron clan oct 15 2023 only
He's A Pine Cone Collector
She let me warm my hands on her breast
As she brought the wine glass from the Restore
To my lips.
She said her toes were cold from waiting,
While I had picked pine cones from the ground around the mailbox
And laid them on the bush
Outside my door.
They would look fine
In the bowl
Beneath the cadenza.
And that had led from taking out the garbage
And from a shower after a nap
While her toes grew cold from waiting.
Yet she let me warm my hands upon her breast,
While she served me refrigerated wine,
From a spigoted box.
Construction Paper Heart
When he sat, working on a gift poem for a beloved granddaughter, when asked,
“Do you want to fall in love again?” without a hesitating moment for thoughts of his companion or with thoughts of his companion to let her know, he says in the voice that speaks poet's words, “I will never fall in love again.”
Her pitter pat heart practically on the plate before her, she watched in horror, the setness of his jaw, as he stared at the loving poem he wrote for his blood. Foul fingers pecking at small keyboards, correcting the lines she suggested were weak, not ever taking the exact words she displayed from her tongue, but twisted them so as to never give her claims to anything of his. His heart, his home, his soul. His life, never linked to her, never acknowledged to her, kept quiet, and for her sake, he says, and slathered his toast with buttery spread, jellied, and opulently flavored for his mouth that dissed her notion of love between them.
Was her hurt by her, was he hurt by the hers, or did she forget to say no, on occasion, even when it was always yes yes yes for her to him. Her heart still laying crimsom on the table looking like a child’s art of feathery construction paper in primary red. The jagged edges pulling apart it in a series of tears and tears, Pixar animated movements across the porcelain, China, white, logo hidden. No one would see them there. The red paper oozing to a fluid liquid state of succumb.
Only
Only you.
Only you
Know,
I need kisses in threes.
When you left me lonely
When you left me alone
One
Was all you gave me
One
And only
One.
