Poet

Dirt

/ Katrina Kaye / Leave a comment

Katrina Kaye

She used to bury me in the sand;

I was comforted
by the weight on my body.
How the beach cradled me,
the earth held me.

I never suffered the thought of claustrophobia
or the fear which comes from restrained limbs.

The sand,
a thick covering
like the oscillation of waves.

The dirt is not so different.
Cool against my skin,
softer than sand,
sweeter to taste,
more consoling in the way
it held every part of me.

I could fight it,
squirm and struggle.

But lying here,
a well nourished seed,
letting each shovelful of supple
thick dirt fall on my body.
The weight steadily increasing
like a lover’s embrace.

I think about the earth,
one spoonful at a time,
devouring me.

The cradle of mouth around my limbs.
The ease of acceptance.

I think about childhood and hot summers and you.
I close my eyes.

I sleep.

“Dirt” is previously published in Madness Muse Press (2020).

Fly

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Katrina Kaye

I am no longer
a hatchling in need
of the soft
wing of your embrace.

I grew under
gaze and care
and now

stand on feet,
balanced,
strong.

This sky is vast,
it will dance for me.

You don’t need to
cradle me in the basket
of your arms.

I am bird
with wings expanded,
breath in lungs.

Let me fly.

“Fly” is previously published in To Anyone Who has Ever Loved a Writer (2014).

Erosion

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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).