There is paint everywhere. The moon has cracked into hundreds of yellows and if you squint, you’ll see stars bleeding out from its satellite. How many nights have you wandered beneath? Miles of rain, stretched out into measurable puddles, can never wash away what once was. And bodies swirl too just like this acrylic resin. We are removing and gaining new parts just like Van Gogh. He wrote letters too. When the evening slips behind a new day, all that glow that got you looking away from your dark, remains. Like love.
Tag Archives: evening
none of this will be remembered.
“Before one can experience feelings of grief or loss, there must have been a genuine sense of attachment.” Dhillon Khosla
When I sleep, you visit. This is the only time. You grab my hand with forearm tattooed by rosary beads. You breathe your days into my neck which smells of Sunday morning church incense. You wrap your martial-arts-softball thick thighs around me like evening seat belt. You administer midnight medicine of your tongue, warmed all day by the oven of your mouth. You let me run my fingers through your hair, wild enflamed parentheses. You read me Neruda or the latest gender memoir. You tell me where I can’t touch you and then you touch me there. You extract all my salt hidden behind the window treatment of my eyes. You hear the loud footsteps of humans above us and the sirens outside my bedroom; you do not hear me mourn you. You remind me this is the last time. Final kiss on railroad track. Final shot of whiskey in bar so dark, I can barely find your freckles. You do not mention I will never eat the same again. You forget to remind me that there was always someone else who distracted your bones away. When I wake, you will haunt my breath. None of you will be remembered until I close my eyes.
on this day, a Rebel was born.
for R.
Trees fall out of you. And the earth wraps its oceans and fossils around your questioning gaze. There is a carving of howl. It sounds of violins and plucked stares. That shade of purple in sky is intonation of the academic lust looking for its disrobe. Red is all around you. In the heat of sun’s early morning music. And the one in Brooklyn who calls you muse. The threads of wool wrapping forearms. The fire attended to with stoker and teeth. You’ve biked over state lines just to search for the perfect book or pint of poetry. Still, you gulp shots of evening as though they’ve been fermenting just for you. And they have.
Aimee Herman 