What We’ve Been Given: A Poetry Series
*Article from Lexington Line’s Autumn/Winter 2021 Issue, pages 62-63
Check out the full issue here.
Ephemera
So as cement,
poured canvas for hopscotch,
squares cherishing your chalk,
cures and cracks.
So as a dollar bill,
lines our pockets or someone else’s,
exchanged sour candies, bittersweet coffees,
frays and shreds.
So as cameras,
capturing fractals of feeling,
fashioning yearbooks, nudes and Christmas cards,
corrodes and crumbles.
So as cars,
fixed by your father,
the vessel to long lines, soft kisses and laughter,
stalls and rusts.
So as flyposting,
lines the walls of streets we roamed,
stripped by strangers, elemental reform,
splits and rives.
So as lightbulbs,
soft glow on the city,
glare on our skin, lovers, leavers,
burns and snaps.
So as faces,
masks we wear for each other,
crooked candids, shimmering orbs,
wrinkles and fades.
So as minds,
ubiquitous and imperceptible,
molds of what they said,
withers and dissolves.
So as rivers,
run past us to kiss their mothers,
carries our splashes and lost sunglasses,
departs and parches.
So as rain,
seeds of space,
nourishes us for sorrow or dancing,
fails and dries.
So as stars,
slip through somber to stare at you,
azure embers ignite our everything,
collapses and shatters.
On Getting Lost
I’m a time traveler. Floating through space. Innerverse. Journey through billions of places collected in DNA that lies beneath, between, and inside my head. I see screens, universes of their own, yet I’m tied to only a few planets. No freedom. Exploration, only determination to finish what gets started, to do what is asked. Each humdrum, tedious task, so that I may arrive at my future—ready. Elated to travel forward, not straight zig-zag maybe side to side—but forward. It is human to be lost. Feeling the sharp tickle of butterfly wings, the laughter echoing. Screams of silence in between. Sometimes getting gone makes the destination more serene. You find things again when you’re lost.
Sweatshirt Swallowing me
Your sweatshirt smells like pink chiffon,
makes you dream. You dripped
ketchup on the sleeve from fries
you wished you didn’t eat.
Scrubbed away with stain stick and bleach.
The faded red stays stuck on your sleeve.
You chew the strings when each lover leaves.
Shards of plastic between your teeth.
*All poems & illustrations by Kally Compton