Katrina Kaye

This is a love song.

Heavy with honey,
yet rinses clean.

Know the fingerprints
which imprint on skin
have composed melody.

Our time together manifests into
wave upon wave of acoustic play,

like the night the power went out
so we lit candles and spit the lyrics
to American Pie over and over
until we recited every syllable.

Or the morning we watched the sun rise
humming Beatles ballads heard in dreams
amid the steam of coffee over pines.

There was the Thursday afternoon
in the heat of July when we watched
lightning bite the earth
and sang lonely songs of rain.

And the 4 a.m. we carelessly switched A to E
to catch a tune to match fresh free verse.

Eager to raise our voices together.

Sing with you,
to you,
clumsy hands
snapped strings,
missed notes,
forgotten words,
didn’t stop us.

I want to capture those days
in more than fuzzy photographs
and slurred memories.

I want to recreate the melody,
construct a love song,
a dedication,
to you,
to everyone,
snared in the fleeting moments
when it’s good to be alive.

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