-After Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz
-For K.
The last time I tried to save a soul was 2003
my back was unaccustomed to angel wings
grandiose thinking had my halo breaking light
Leslie
I knew if I could hug her she would break
the pieces I caught could be remodeled
melded and molded into better
I could make it better
singlehandedly
s curl and cape; Here I am to save the day!
she needed me
I needed her to need me
you need
I need you
So maybe I don’t save souls
no angel the devil hasn’t touched.
This is the only poem left to write…
This is the poem I’m writing
instead of writing how I now tear off strips of paper worrying
them between anxious digits, whispering mantra:
she loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me
not…This is the poem I’m writing instead of a poem calculating
the new distance from me to your arms instead of the poem
metamorphing your brown eyes into glaciers instead of the sunset
glancing off the trees where I will propose to you poem.
I am writing this instead of buying bouquets of I love yous bathed
in entwined hands.
Because I never saved anyone
And if some poem
unmasking my alter ego’s failures can make you remember
the way my face feels burrowed in your neck,
how my back arches into you, how you’re the only one who could love
my Clark Kent flaws…
If some unmasking poem could do that?
Then I am no angel, no devil,
I have laid down my cape for you
we can build mud castles over it together.
