Katrina Kaye

run away with me.

make a bedroom
of this september sky
with all its grey leaking
about asphalt and chain link.

let us take a mile of highway,
cracked under the remnants of summer,
call it ours.
i will make a flag
from a torn dress
still wet from desert storms.
wave to hell with
the past,
the present,
to all those pretty bar boys,
with their chiseled faces
and lazy smiles.

i have mountain tops peaked with dreams,
a ridge cresting the Sandias big enough for two.
we don’t need anything else.

turn toward the sun with me.

if you let me kiss your shoulder blade,
i will forever
buy you black t-shirts and serve
you coffee in bed.

you’ll slice fresh green limes
and i will engrave poetry
into the crease of your knuckles.

we will get a horse,
a tall, yellow bay,
and outrun the moon.

the dark will never catch us.

i could make you a home
if you let me learn how.
if you will help me hold up
the planks and hand me the nails
so i no longer need to clench them in my teeth.

i am searching for a spill
of sunlight upon mattress to wake up beside.
a path that will unravel silver
i can twist around ankles.
a sailboat waiting at the coast of our earth.

let us find a day
in the middle of the desert
so bright,
the sun can only be felt,
not seen.

from where we stand
we can watch as it beats upon
the open road,
using our bodies to
break into shadow.

“to the tuesday night regular with the kind smile” is previously published in September (2014).