The Purity of Starch

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The Purity of Starch

Betrayal or spark, I cannot refuse this
course. One look, the merest touch,
and I imagine lips and inverted
hearts, and books lying open on
pine stumps, caught in a wavering
dream of wildflowers and perfumed
hair, of short nights and tangled
sheets, the lemon-half moon hovering
overhead. This is too much. It is never
enough. I want the purity of heavy starch,
the stillness of sanctity, of certainty
in discretion and falsehood strummed
true. I want this flaw healed. I want
skin on skin, tongue to tongue, and
unuttered words seared through flesh
and into bone in that chamber where
everything is nothing, and implication
drills deeper than truth, truer than love,
and only we remain hidden at its core.
But today’s rain carries warnings
of rising waters and wreckage washed
downstream, and as I listen to recordings
of your voice, because that is what I have
today, I sip coffee and wait, knowing
the emptying begins in this moment, now.

 

* * *

I wrote this poem just over two years ago. Today we’re getting married…

17 thoughts on “The Purity of Starch”

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