Like a shameful love letter shoved in a boy’s
locker between Biology and P.E.,
the secret words of my caring for him flared
among hidden things.
Poems blooming in campfires. Our names scribbled
on the underside of a piano bench.
My throat’s mute yes as he pulled me like a rope
toward his warm bed.
I hated that I loved him, hated holding
what I would lose. My thumb pressed to his heartbeat,
my fingers spread like a starfish on his chest,
I gave into grief.
What was despair but knowing I’d wake alone
a month later, my hands searching the bedsheets
for something of his and finding only my own
kicked-off pajamas?
Because most men’s hearts are blank sheets of paper,
they absorb new lovers like ink. Still, nothing
was lovelier than his eyelashes glinting
in lamplight as he slept.
And nothing was to regret, sweat glistening
like stars, the bright carousel of our bodies
spinning toward the divine, able, but not
willing, to slow down.
–
Sara Pirkle is a Southern poet, an identical twin, a breast cancer survivor, and a board game enthusiast. Her first book, The Disappearing Act (Mercer University Press, 2018), won the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. She is the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at The University of Alabama.