All My Heart

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

At 2 am on a Sunday night/Monday morning,
he comes home and wakes me with one
of our favorite albums on the turntable
and an invitation to join him in the moonlight.

Before I can protest, he turns me
into giggles and interpretive dance
as we sing the words we know
and mumble the ones forgotten.

Without knowing it was possible,
I am child again:

up too late without supervision and
no fear of consequence or tomorrow
creating a secret language with my best friend.

Until—
exhausted from spinning himself in circles—

my love,

who dances with his hands
as if they held sparklers and conducted orchestras,
who flips the album over and over and over
because he doesn’t realize we listened to both sides,
who looks at me as if I am magic
and serenades me with a lingering lullaby,

finally nests besides me in the low light of the rising sun,
and slips into the sweetest of dreams.

I rest my hand on his chest and feel his breathing
faster than mine like horses galloping or
the rabid beat of evening drums,
like mercy and the ever-growing need for love.

Who ever thought I could love so hard,
and a human no less, so unreliable, so inconstant,
but I do. I love with my strong hands and slow breath
and the music in my mind. I love with all my heart.

 

On the Train West

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I pass the time thinking of clothes drying on the line, a breeze dancing the arms of a shirt. I think of a girl reading a book on her bed, lying on her belly, feet swaying back and forth, back and forth like unheard beats of a metronome. I think of an ocean just beyond sight with dark waves and white froth as it reaches and pulls, reaches and pulls.

To pass the time, I suck on hard candy, drink a local beer, and pretend to understand purpose, but I only know the rustle of wind, broken glass in the aisle, a little girl’s squeal and laugh, and the sound of rain as it breaks from the clouds which have hung heavy all afternoon. At once, it becomes music.

I wonder where the hopeful and heart beat are finding comfort tonight. The train seems to go on forever and the destination has long been forgotten. It’s easy to forget where we are going as the years creep up and over us. It’s easy to follow the familiar track without much thought or question. It’s easy to just hold your hand out into the wind and feel the world pass by without much thought for anything else.

There is nothing to prove. If we have learned anything, it is that the sun will rise eventually, regardless of whether or not we howl at the moon.

Things I Carry

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I emerge from the darkness of my underworld
carrying a lantern and a handful of sunflowers.

In my back pocket are all the poems that have ever touched my heart;
in my boot a hidden twenty-dollar bill for emergencies.

Wrapped around me is every piece of advice my mother ever gave me
and every life lesson she never realized she impressed upon me.

I carry the music of Mozart humming in my throat
and the rare, honest smile of my brother in my memory.

I carry the good and the bad, the ashes of my fire and the hope for better,
a wooden box of mementos from the people I once knew and once knew me.

I carry the acceptance for what I cannot change
and a stubborn hope to change what I can.

I carry everything and nothing.
My hands remain forever empty and open.