Iron

Fated

/ Katrina Kaye
Katrina Kaye

Three girls weave colored threads, square knots, cherry beads, to make a bracelet for me.

Mischief reflected in silvery glimmered fingertips.

Knowing the secrets, they wait for me to ask.

My morning girl, blonde strains pulled back, green eyes squinting,

measures a golden thread, watches my face brighten, and returns my playful gaze;

Even though I know the answer, she wants me to ask: who?

My midday girl, brown curls shaking, intent on perfection, unravels another length; a deep sapphire, like a newborn’s iris.

I cradle my swollen abdomen, light kicks greet my hands. She doesn’t meet my eyes.

She wants me to ask: when?

My midnight girl, through parted black waves, sharpens brass scissors, waiting for my attention to settle against her.

Cloudy, vacant eyes glued to me. I watch her hands, quick and precise, as she cuts the threads with a firm finality.

My hands fall slowly away from a motionless belly. She looks at me, apathetic, plain faced.

She wants me to ask: why?

Erosion

/ Katrina Kaye / 1 Comment

Katrina Kaye

My façade is masonry.

Mineral matter

solidified

over supple flesh
of chin and chest.

I have built myself
into marble statue
perpetual in posture.

When you hit gravel,
I was the stepping stone
that supported your climb.
When you couldn’t swim any longer
I was an island to lie upon.

You said I was your rock:

stone held firmly in place,
lacking malleability,
solid under weight bending back.

You said you needed me
to hold you up,

keep free of fierce waters,
and blackened ravines.

You said I am
your stable support,

but my material,
though durable,
lacks permanence.

The smallest stream
cuts through
the hardest of granite
after years of rain.

Mountains weather to remnants,
boulders become sand,
and pebbles playing on the beach
move easily in the
pull and tug of changing tide.

I have not remained picturesque
from years of exposure to your elements.

My exterior is worn, eroded,
and when I crack
there will be no gems to harvest,

just hollow.

The firmer your hold on my splintering surface
the more you will strip me to sediments,
until there
is nothing left

of me

for you.

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

Orchard

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I’ve passed this place
a thousand times,
but this is the first
I’ve bothered to pluck
fruit from tree and
allow it to squeeze in
my palm. I swat flies
from eyes. They have
a tendency to hover here;
eager for sweetness, they
block my view, twist sight
into kaleidoscope. I have
spent my life resisting
the sugar that sticks between
tiny hairs which litter
my thighs; but now, I
am learning how to cover
my tracks. To slip secret
through yard and wet my lips
on the ripe. I have never
been one for proper manners.
I wade into orchard,
follow the sound of the
records your mother spins
from house. Wail along
to the deep voice which
balloons through the trees.
No one feels hunger in
quite the same way.

“Orchard” is previously published in Chasing Rabbits (2014).