By sarah
Date: 24 August 2000
picture
i paint for you a picture tonight
of a man
and of a woman
the woman stands before a screen door
as the day fades away
an old cluttered porch stands before her
with cats milling around in the lazy sunlight
the woman, her hands resting on the wooden ledge
portruding from the tattered screen, ages old
generations of arms rested upon that wooden ledge
before the woman are grape vines, and a fly
and before the grape vines and the fly is
catalpa tree, and before the catalpa
a rotting wooden fence
with a field of green grass behind the fence
you hear the drone of crickets
in back of the woman, rooms away is the man
a man lying on a bed with eyes reddened
and arms thrown in surrender
the woman stands with arms drawn in apprehension
her eyes also reddened matching the red
of the dress she wears, her feet bare
everything around them is seemingly bare, stripped
naked to the eye and the probing mind that might
happen upon them
the had eaten in silence, with tears salting their food
and silence tasting their tongues
ears chaste with the virgin night
they cannot cry any longer and think of what they
might of once had, instead they think of the day
when it will end, for they tasted that this evening
the mortality
the lingering spoils of death as it touched their lives
and their life together for the first time
ever present that night in their fairy tale laughter
and in their bursting souls that reached for each other
her eyes ate him up, needing to devour him
tonight this is the picture of a man
and a picture of a woman
in desperation
Back to the Heart-on-Sleeve Corner