O Kathy

by tomverve

Posted to Action Poetry on 2001-08-11 16:51:00

O Kathy asking me chemistry
mascara to shade bluegreen sheen
but you couldn’t hide your pouty lips
glistening like a dusk cloud kiss–
but not from me

softer only was the feathered voice
that paused for a velvet
digression upon the sexbed
of your lips’ fair full ache–
but not for me

you were always downplayed silent
the mystic fairy muse
who gently tongued ‘softspoken’
into the writer’s tickled ear–
but i could relate

you banged the skins in a band
to percuss what cursed you
wrote some longing poetry
for the touch that fell the night–
but it wasn’t mine

pictured you slinking slow
out of those army mud fatigues
pictured making candle shadow love
to stop all time (cuz what thereafter?)–
but i was always a dreamer

nirvana strummed your teenage soul
with that musical confusion
kurt the martyr of blackout depths
and courtney, pretty cute too–
but i wasn’t

you belonged on the side where
seattle rain could match your tears
but fate’s irony, displaced heart
with displaced geography, and born here–
but i was too

the deepest throes of logos agony
emerged with sharp sting patterns
darker than your weighed-down eyes
burning red on sheepfleece skin–
but i could only watch

called you one dim soft night
aflutter with your breathless sighs
but your sister only said sadly
she’s not home, she’s never home–
and me, i had no answers