People with holes in their chests

I got used to

opening books and reading the last page

reading lips in the dark

sharing a bed with nightmares

I got used to

your outline, emptied of care

squeezed dry these years

dessicated by slow fruiting rage

we lay as blue eggs will

in a basket of woven thorns

clucking over regrets, like weary card players at dawn

you gave me a cocktail of poison

I the dreary tread of error

it took a life time and a match

struck against willing rock

to burn the illusion

and gather ourselves whole

Even as spilt ways form streams

Cleaving together seemed

The natural passage of people with holes in their chest

Tasting the arrow as it exits

Where then? The other part of me

Located in your similarity

A death not proffered but needed

I, a bag put down, not retrieved

They mocked when she wept

Pointed at her words and said;

Her humiliation and dramatic way

Is overblown and immature

You nodded in agreement

Because she was no longer part of your wield

A flung thing to be lost and spoiled

Once you would have defended with your life

Told them; It is you / with your cruel minds / who should be ashamed

That was when we walked as one print

Beneath patterned trees still living, holding to

A belief some knots cannot come undone

it wasn’t true … our knot I saw dissolve

As you baptized change with solvent certainty

Moved toward it and away from me

Did I ever say … without you I

Thin-rooted and growing side-ways

Slowly fail?

I did?

Ah. Then.

I must have missed

Your response.

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43 thoughts on “People with holes in their chests

  1. Sometimes, we have to be shown who our naysayers are in the worst of ways for lessons to be learned.

    Candice, you cut write the white off of college-ruled paper, especially here:

    “I got used to
    your outline, emptied of care
    squeezed dry these years
    dessicated by slow fruiting rage
    we lay as blue eggs will
    in a basket of woven thorns
    clucking over regrets, like weary card players at dawn
    you gave me a cocktail of poison
    I the dreary tread of error
    it took a life time and a match
    struck against willing rock”

    This is effortless, the whole of it. Truly.

  2. Reminds me of ‘Kintsugi’ , the Japanese art of repairing broken objects with gold. Once repaired, they are considered more beautiful for having been broken.

  3. As Carl Sandburg put it: “I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.” Your poetry always makes me cry . . . and makes me laugh . . . You are a gift!

  4. I’m trying to visit my favorites and you were ON my list although for some reason not on my friends list just in my memory so I added you back I don’t know why you weren’t except WP does that sometimes. Good to see you my friend

  5. My pleasure, I have been away from WP for some time so maybe that had something to do with it; I’m trying to make my way back though. Thanks for coming by and reading through so much of my work.

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