Verse & Photography by Kay Kennett
to be romantic
to steep in bath water
to float in a cupped hand
to read into
to press in a book and forget
to remember today more than other days
to remember what I like to do
to remember who I like to give rose petals to
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When the Old Man fell,
it interrupted all scheduled programming,
including Britney’s tenth birthday party,
where I was one minute
feeling
to pin the tail on the donkey,
and the next listening
for the sound
of a pin
falling.
Falling
like ashes,
ashes from the sky
in Oregon.
Fifteen years later,
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Time tends to create an opaque membrane | with more limited optical clarity | behind the lenses of eyes | that automatically adjust for distant targets
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shoulder pads
a cigarette burn on my left shoulder
her middle name
a battle with me at the middle
second helpings of mashed potatoes
too little pride to succeed, too much to ask for help
how to win Monopoly
how to cheat
how to cheat the system
Nintendo 64
an excuse for asking:
“Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Really, are you sure?”
love
The sun had come down, but not out.
It was the bulb of a projector, casting
cool, blue light from its core; except for
lacking an electrical cord.
Where did the heat come from—
that changed the surface of the moon
from swiss cheese to a flat screen,
capable of displaying our vitals?
A reddish tinge across your cheeks
told the answer. It was 100 degrees,
and counting down from the minute
you walked up, and I could imagine
the peak.
We were sitting close to each other,
under the pretenses of just wanting
to share a large popcorn and soda.
You hadn’t had sugar in six weeks.
An hour after it happened, I joked:
“The vision of you undoing my laces
may be my undoing. Oh, so delicately,
your fingers untwined the knots.”
Now, several days after it happened,
I have exhausted the limit of images
on the “beauty of tight binding,”
pretending an interest in macramé.
I have laid the first and only move
in single player Cat’s Cradle,
betting on you to pinch my Xs
into the Jacob’s Ladder.
So, what do you say? Let’s play
until the sun comes down,
and the afterglow fades, or at least
until we have run out of shapes.
With luck, perhaps, thereafter.
okay poetry 