Romantic

Hotel

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

This room is broken blackbird with misshapen wings.

You are cheap hotel bed sheets,
rough to the touch,
slipping too easily off the corners of a mattress
too hard for the spine.

I am crushed pomegranate seeds
popping between tongue and teeth,
a temporary stain shared on lips.

These gestures are swollen feet and strained nerves.

The pressure of thumb
on throat as we take this kiss
is assurance your intentions
are not to break me.

We slide and sling like cocktails and olives,
one sipping off the other
until we are both helpless.

The cuss of your breath on my neck,
and the pinch of thumb on thigh,
conjures dread for the morning’s rippling cold.

These window panes are splitting sunrises
and eleven am check outs.

While you rise, I retrace promises you carved in
tender flesh of eyelids and inner arm.

Pretending to sleep, I listen,
with hands curled under chin,
the sounds of your departure.

You have dug a trench inside me
from gut to gullet.

You fill me there.

“Hotel” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012.

Seven of Them

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

‎”…all kisses are metaphors decipherable by allocations of time, circumstance, and understanding…”
~Saul Williams

I

It is not
the first time
a man pressed
lips boldly
against the back
of my hand,
but that quick act,
from a brass jaw
accompanied by
crystal gaze,
caused a blush
from inside out
painting the pink
of vulnerability.

II

On our wedding day,
he took his time,
knowing he had forever.
It wasn’t the kiss
I blew when I rushed
out the door,
or the one he stole when
the late hours
of night crept in.
He could start slow,
lips together before parting,
desire restrained
before release.
It was his hand
on waist,
the curve of fingers
in-between his own.
Not a grip,
but an interweave,
gentle as the
rain leaking from the roof
after the storm.

III

Sitting on the bed
in your hotel room,
you worked all night
to get me there
alone.
I worked all
night to let you.
Safe from peering eyes
with the conversation
drying on our tongues,
you ask,
with the respect of a prayer
for a kiss.
It was a question
I answered hours ago.

IV

Her lips,
the petals of daffodils,
we lacked the grace
of age’s implication
and fumbled foolish,
like children
underwater.

V

I feel the rash
on my face,
a blossom of red where
beard rubbed
sensitive chin
and cheeks.
I imagine my appearance,
like a child eating pie
with hands tied behind back,
cherry filling smeared
left and right.
This is how you reflect
upon my skin.

VI

He thinks she doesn’t
know he’s there,
but she feels
his presence
in the doorway.
She stands
her back to him,
not acknowledging
his stare
as she slips
clothes to floor.
She pretends not
to notice his approach,
until his hand
finds its space upon
bare hip and his
lips caress the
tender top of spine,
she closes her
eyes and exhales.

VII

Part of me knows
it is the last.
It’s why I take
my time,
hovering lips
beside yours,
breathing in your air,
an exchange of vows
or last rites.

“Seven of Them” is previously published in Rabbits for Luck (2016).

Her Absence

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I do not regret the days
I spent loving you in her absence.

I do not regret
your tempered touches
as you searched for her skin
under my scales

or the way your eyes reflected
her sharp chin and freckled chest
when they fell on my frame.

I do not regret
the fleeting space we created,
morning gestures
in the folds of sheet and flesh.

Tending your wounds
with tongue and time.

You found solace
with your elbows on my table,
your dirty feet in my bed,
but I knew you would exit
on your own side to look
out the south facing window.

She was ever present
upon the waves of your thoughts.

Your ears keen for her voice,
but I heard it first,
soft as the buzz of bumble bees on the beach
calling you home.

I do not regret
returning to a solitary balcony
above the ocean’s turning point,
or slipping inside my bed,
still warm in your place.

As you kiss my hands
in gratitude of my hospitality,
my kindness,

don’t leave thinking,
I am emptied.

I gave what I wanted,
no more,
no less.

“Her Absence” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012 and Vox Poetica in 2011.