Sock Puppet by Ayla Rogers
Hold on, boy—what
is it you’re running from?
Is it the break
of day that burns you so?
Or the heat
of a bed too familiar
For resting
without sinking, and slipping
Out the door
by 9 am won’t wake her
From the nightmare
the last one left her in.
A death
dream you’ve not so much as blinked on.
Slow down
girl—what is it you’re running to?
Does the dim
room make your sight so hazy
You can’t
look him in the eye to say it,
Without
rivers impeding the contact?
Rivers saved
for the ones who bore themselves
More fully
than he would ever dare to
On this
silty bed, so shallow this spring.
He prefers
you with your face turned away
From the
shame he’s so used to finding there,
In parched
beds with chaffing and chapped lovers.
He had
developed such a taste for drought
That he
nearly drowned from the depth that night,
Not knowing
he could touch the bottom.
He gasped
for air like he’d gasped for drowning,
Sinking deeper
into his sweet demise
Into this
mess of a girl who asked him,
“Stay just
long enough to make me feel it,
The affection
he left without showing”—
His face, so
sure he felt it drying out,
Leaving with
the ocean of their distance,
To sail away
and drown in by himself,
Leaving her
an island to desert sharks.
Watching the
fish sprout legs, she realizes,
Leaving on a
sour note is better
Than waking,
dazed, to find nothing at all—
No note but
the ones to the same old song
She can finally
feel with new meaning.
Hard hit like
the single sock he left her,
Too quiet to
ruffle soiled linens.
Soon, O
Ianthe! life is o’er,
And
sooner beauty’s heavenly smile:
Grant only
(and I ask no more),
Let
love remain that little while.
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