STILL TALKING ABOUT ENDINGS
by Kelli Allen
Tell me how to roll-up and flee. When I touch
your wrist with three fingers and am checking
not for pulse but for birds, lilies, trapped, both
in their unfurling, under your skin, maybe
mine, tell me how to instead ache on my own.
Tonight you fill your mouth with pebbles
collected from our river’s narrow bank
and this, too, is refusal to listen. How
can you hear the stories I surrender
with mica between your tooth and jaw?
Once there were two of us. And now
the briny pears are blossoming and every
walk I take without you is a reminder
that we left what matters spilt over silk
sheets we spread together to mark this and ours.
Gyroscope Review - page 10
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