by LE Francis
Drawn back by her narrow, tributary wrists
how many surrenders must you declare
before you are finally broken? An arrow’s end
may bloom in petals of down & still it is capable
of puncture. & how many times can you say,
“I’m yours” before you mean it? You pull
at the stitches until your heart slips out
to splatter on the floor & only to say “I could
fall in love with you.” You have either sustained
or you have fallen, there is no could be, no
someday when you’ve already so lovingly let
the carpet drink your blood. & you cannot
show me these suspiciously aligned stars & tell me
there is a god – drunk off his own feeling,
wobbly in the knees, plucking constellations
off the vine just to feel them dissolve in his throat.
Your difficulty being the comprehension of the part
you’ve played — for all your bitter recollections,
for the bland words that he remembered in hopes
of becoming a dropped stitch in time. Somewhere
there is a top hat with his name embroidered
under the rim, & you are either in love or you are not.
Love is the dissolution & foolishness the vessel;
the universe, a fire that laps at your feet.
* inspired by Anne Rice’s “The Witching Hour”
LE Francis is the fiction editor for Sage Cigarettes Magazine. Find her online at nocturnical.com.
