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Poetry Uncategorized

Kelpie

By Jake Roberts

 

An old statuette demands supremacy

From the safety of the mantelpiece.

Yours, up for good this time, you smile,

This time we promised. Flecks of paint,

 

Faint from here, returned to taunt

The drab shallows of newer portraits

With their clammy, photographic sheen.

Not she, all gloss and grin, crafted,

 

Polished, matchless bride

To interior pining. You dance

Your way around the sun, hours snap by,

Night washes in, I elope backwards.

 

Morning comes early. I race its breaking

But find a glib dawn at the window,

Your skin pooling like wax, hot pain

Like the tearing of ligaments, a smile

 

Still – not that which I had seen before.

The crackle of denial from a smirk

Scratches my nostrils like spilt perfume

Or varnish; my breath is repossessed.

 

I am lifted by a mocking thunder,

A palimpsest of grief smeared

On every bone; pinched, dragged

Before a howling jury, I miss the verdict.

 

They send me whence you came,

The backs of my legs bruising

As they smack against attic stairs.

Alone, my fingers claw a final word.

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