Drunk

Katrina Kaye

I let you follow my eyes
taste my words,
let your hand sit on my shoulder
just long enough,
and your breathe hover near my ear.

I can’t remember how I got there.
How I crept so close to your side.
I suppose you got me a little drunk too,
a caress on your back, a playful snicker,
slow blink, then look away.

Can’t tell who was the cat
and who the wolf.
Didn’t matter who
was following who’s tracks.
We ended at the same station,
two steps beyond the stop sign.

And when it was time for last call
and those dirty lights
of two am sparked on.
Our eye lids were at half mast
and our grins, too bemused,
to realize we were being called home.
To infatuated to accept
it was time to part.

I left you hung over
without so much as
a bloody mary to nurse you back to health.
And as I too sat at home
cradling a pounding head,
I think of how
wicked it was to lead you somewhere
you’re not allowed to go.
To let you feel the map
of my spine then retreat with no
more than an empty bottle
and a sour taste on your tongue.

“Drunk” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories Like That Anymore…(2011).

Danea

Katrina Kaye

You are the drops of summer
rain shimmered gold on skin.

You are the child too young
for my bitter heart,
my yellow bird,
the last bloom of August.

I knew I was in love with you
after the first time
I heard you laugh in your sleep.

Every song is a melody
shaped by your lips.

The same lips that
brush my forehead
when I curl to by side.

The same lips that shot
an arrow at my back
as I walked away. I was too
proud to turn around.

Your laugh will always be
one of my favorite things.

“Danea” is previously published in Fevers of the Mind (2021).

Fleeting

Katrina Kaye

The echo of our time together
still reeks of musty clothes and walks in the rain.

Aware of the tick of the tock,
I hastily wrote my lyrics all over your body,
unfinished tattoos of snarling dragons
and long haired beauties.

We were starving then,
misfit and broken,
so desperate on these feet
which knew only how to sink in sand.

The snap of your smile
was enough to unknot
the tiny hairs around my neck.
The ink of your iris
left my door unlocked
for the chance you
needed a comfort to crawl in.

You were my favorite stanza
of a strange poem
birthed over bed sheets and smiling moons.

I was so careful
not to use the word forever.

After you slipped out,
I spent the afternoon
looking for scissors to clip
this moment clean.

Instead I found ribbons of your
Wednesday night verses,
the imprinted entanglement of your arms,
the scrawl of your breath
against shoulder blade,
the residual whisper:

This
is all there is.

Just you,
just me,

just this.

“Fleeting” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).