This tether will not lead me to anything,
least of all you.
But still I keep it clasped
between rope burnt palms
unsure of the slack
where once there was a taut pull,
desperate and pleading,
but slowly fraying
in the places I chose not to look.
With the Daily Prompt no longer running I’m looking for some new places to hunt for inspiration. Does anyone have any recommendations for poetry prompts/link ups that take place during the week?
Tonight I am chasing the cool side of the pillow,
almost as elusive as breeze
despite the windows with their open mouths
panting in the heat.
Here, the backs of my knees slide slicked
between day fresh sheets
too quickly twisted into abandoned heaps,
lumps of coal still smoldering at the foot of this bed
all while the ceiling fan wheels in slow circles
the air curdling into soups so thick
it sticks in my lungs
like grief I want to scream into the cool side of a pillow
until my breath has turned cotton to swamp,
until I cannot tell the tears from my sweat
and the summer feels a little less like a coffin
pressing in on all sides.
Already the veil has been tucked away as a memory, beneath the cards we couldn’t fit on the mantelpiece and the notes received once the invites were posted. Still, the leftover cheesecake is still fresh in the fridge and sausage rolls on a platter still sit on the table at my mother’s, ripe for plucking in pass-by swipes of the dining room.
The band is the only sign that anything is changed. That you are no longer my fiancee, but now my husband, promised in paper and witness to love and honour till death do us part. Our world falls quiet in the sleepy aftermath and we are able to return to us as we were, as we wish to be…
Wedding season blooms
gypsophila and roses
sudden, sweet, fleeting.
Things have been a little chaotic over the past couple of weeks in my household so I’ve not been as active as I would like with the DVerse prompts. I feel I have a good excuse though. On Saturday my fiancee and I tied the knot.
I’ll admit that I’m quite glad to have all the planning behind me now and some peace and quiet on the horizon. It’s was a perfect day and a wonderful event, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to sit back and not have anything to worry over.
The ripples are gone when I look,
searching the water for a slip of silver
twisting back on itself
leaping skyward in panic
or ecstasy perhaps.
I think about you and I,
or at least the phantom of us
that clings to my lungs on slow days,
crawls onto my shoulders
to press my face down, down, down,
down where I deserve to be
when my own body twisted back on itself,
my mouth searching for a way
to swallow the words I’d spoken,
to return them to the saftey of unspoken
rather than the spotlight
of my glowing red cheeks
as I fumbled to dress myself
in what I thought was maturity.
I can feel nails along my spine,
when I think of how much
I wanted to be loved.
My fingers are wonky.
Long,
slender,
but wonky.
They start off straight enough,
but seem to loose focus near the ends
where suddenly they tilt off course
as if there was a cat in the road
or something.
I think it’s a Forrester trait.
Hands and feet not quite lined up
the way they should be.
The length is all Swin,
though the blood ran short
at the other end,
with teeny, tiny toes
more child than woman.
Index, middle and fourth
are all the same length.
Even the little
isn’t really little in comparison
just a fraction shorter
than the other mini sausages
wriggling beside it.
At one family gathering,
we compared missing knuckles,
stumpy thumbs
and odd shaped toes
to see who could call bingo
with a full set of oddities.
Actually,
that should have been the name
given to my family.
I hope tonight’s poetic’s host doesn’t mind me using fingers and toes as my family trait in response to tonight’s prompt. I know we were only meant to pick one family trait, but in my defense, the two are linked and it’s the same family trait that messes with the knuckles in our hands and our feet.
In my case you can only really see it clearly in my feet but my sister has it in one hand. Her middle finger is slightly shorter than her index finger and fourth finger. Most people don’t notice my wonky fingers unless they point them out so I think I got away slightly lighter when it came to the genetics lottery.
Carol J Forrester 
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