Lullaby

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

the past plays wind instruments
outside bedroom window
a lullaby from a childhood
that slipped by too fast

it’s a tune that has gone unheard
for decades, yet you seem to know
the arrangement of notes
and can anticipate the changing pitch

what melody does the present
sound like other than static
from the television
left on across the room

there is no rush to end the lullaby
it is not the numbed silence from the stillness
of strings and quietude of auditorium we want
but the continuance of the melody

how can we hear the song
when the present is a distracting buzz
when the future is blaring its inevitability
so loud it rattles the windows

this song isn’t urgent to finish
but to be heard as it crests and crescendos
across the bedroom from east facing window
illuminating the dust that sways through stale air

“Lullaby” is previously published in No Longer Water (2024).

Desperation

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

is not merely a flash of color.
You can caress it,

cradle it,

wrap it around your fist
like the links of a chain.
It pinches the skin,
cuts to the pink.

I am not one to chew lips
or graze nail tips, but
on nights like this

desperation

crawls beneath surface,

lurks inside rough veins roped around arm,
treads under the soft tissue of neck,
I can see it pulse.

The salt of it cannot be denied:
the stink cannot go ignored.
I have been playing fill in the blanks
with crossed eyes only
to come to the conclusion
that all of this,

ALL OF THIS

is for nothing.

Can’t you see that?

The hiss of heartbeat
is not generous enough
and with every scratch
the healing takes a little longer.
If the skin is already dead,
then the venom will recede.
Not even a scar remains.

The cut was never that deep.

I tended my own wounds
before anyone ever had
a chance to see them.

 

“Desperation” is previously published in Saturday’s Sirens (2021).

On My Own

/ Katrina Kaye / Leave a comment

Katrina Kaye

I

In front of the iron gates around my apartment,
the only shadows which move
are people passing through open doors.

II

I was in search for the peace your arms gave
like a home prematurely tornado torn from me.
I was in search of hands that mimicked your genius
and eyes like the little boy who traced my lifelines.

III

The first one swept me in a whirlwind of autumn leaves
and I spent the fall in a pantomime of satisfaction.

IV

A man and a woman
can stay warm on a November night.
A man and a woman and another woman
are the heat running out on a December morning.

V

I do not know which to prefer:
the sweet lies of a memory
or the blue eyes of the bartender.
The bed heated by his hunger
or the emptiness just after.

VI

Icicles hang abandoned
dripping in the April sun.
The shadow of a man
who healed my wounds
crossed it, to and fro.
The setting,
redeemed by the shades,
prepared me for a new spring.

VII

The thin man of my summer
preferred golden birds to shy sparrows
But that didn’t stop him
for taking two years with tender feet,
allowing a momentary blindness
by chestnut feathers.

VIII

I have always been a sucker for accents
and long fingers plucking strings;
I know, too,
that difference of enchantment and truth,
but I sometimes fall victim to enchantment.

IX

When the third blue eyed boy flew out of sight,
days after winter solstice,
I had not found the imprint of you.
I stopped retracing flight patterns.

X

I release myself in my past
reflecting on silly lovers and unreal expectations
allowing the idea of home to unravel.

You took the only home I’d ever know with you
on a September morning when the train pulled from station.

XI

When we were both 24
you rode over the state line
for a weekend visit,
but a fear pierced you,
and you fell asleep in hotel room
leaving me waiting alone at window table
watching birds perch on telephone wires.

It was the last time I heard from you.

XII

My mouth cannot hold on to bitterness
but it does not retain hope either.

XIII

Evening crept into afternoon.
I lounge in solidarity.
I no longer look for home
in the cracked shells of the past.