Contours made of water and grief

Painting by Carole Wenig

   If I were a dewdrop
running
aimlessly
on your lame corners

as the kids play with iridescent bubbles,

if I were...

...all those things have no name ...

If I tell why, would you ever forgive me

for my careless cruelties when I was afraid?

These days my life has changed.

My old crimes are precious gems under my skin:

emeralds, sapphires, diamonds...

They are...

... shells of silence,

disheveled rainbows,

tantalized flowers...

They are...

Elizabeth Bishop and Marilyn Hacker

writing poems for an unknown face .

I proved Venus and Mars

in conjunctions, sextiles and trines.

I proved the Sun and the Moon was mine.

If I were a dewdrop two Novembers gone...

...would you catch me in your hands...

and forgive me for being so fragile?

But I am strange to my life

and there is no story of return

for what lasts shall never last

and I struggle with devotion

to forget...

...my contours made of water

and grief...

...are immense dewdrops running aimlessly

as I cry in your hands, skinning our hearts.

Karla Bardanza

Copyright©Karla Bardanza 2012