Poetry

Resurrection

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

Wood, bone, steel,
are easier to bend
than the unseen.

At least this is how she felt.

No wall,
no gate,
no line marked clearly
in dead, brown dirt.

Yet the boundaries were
claimed long ago,
and the consequences,

outlined in the eyes
of fatherless children
and the creases
of blood caked knuckles
tightly weaving
wooden beads.

Our Father’s
whispered in remorse
can’t reclaim immaculacy
or breathe life
into aborted chest.

Inscribed doors
sway open,
attempting to reclaim
a wayward soul,

but persecuting eyes,
form unyielding barriers.

The reflection of
stained glass colored
her skin long ago.
The circling stations,
familiar faces murmur
Sunday morning’s story
of pink and pearl.

As a child,
she could recite all their songs.

“Resurrection” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012 and one of the editions of Adobe Walls.

Fire and Ash

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I didn’t mean to tell you
I love you.

I hadn’t planned on falling again,
so soon.

I was going to stand,
strong and solitary,

Diana among her hounds,
silver bow and arrow poised,

leap from stone to stone,
hunting the wildest of prey
with the keenest sense,

balance tall
on steep slopes,
and gaze across uncharted valleys,
virgin and golden before me.

But your eyes were fire
and I smoldered before you.

I tripped through the brush
twisted my wrist,
broke my bow,
and fell, head first,
into soot and ash
calling your name all the while.

I would have been scared
or angry or ashamed
had you not
slid into the pit beside me,

your hand on mine,
your lips on my neck,
whispering

you love me too.

“Fire and Ash” is previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012 and A Scattering of Imperfections by Casa de Snapdragon 2009.

Poetry Didn’t Save My Life

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

Poetry didn’t save my life,
but we did swim naked together
in the lake up north one sunny afternoon
when we thought no one was looking,

and we’ve been caught more than once
sharing a cup of bitter coffee and overly sugared pie
at all night truck stops off the highway
along the hours of one a.m.

She brushed my hair the morning
of my grandfather’s funeral.

and sang with me in the passenger seat
on the drive from Bakersfield to Porterville
when the string of spotted horse
raced alongside us over the golden hills.

She’s the one who threw the jawbone
of the dead rabbit at my windshield.

No, poetry didn’t save my life,
but I’ve watched her save others.

She pulls bodies from the snow,
throws a line if they can’t reach her fingers,
and leaves them to sleep it off on my living room couch.

Just as I bring as many as I can gather
strapped tall atop the roof of car and
dragged through still burning field to her door.

I pass her gospel,
the most diligent of missionaries.

We are sisters,                     lovers,                   playmates,

co-conspirators,

we stand on opposite sides of the same bed
to balloon sheets and straighten comforter,

she encases my body with both arms
and recites childhood stories
as she rocks me to sleep
long after the boys are gone.

We are intertwined,
blonde streaking brown more discreetly
than the white of time.

She resides nestled
under skin inside bone,
tangled inside every vein of my forearm,
knotted into bent knees and calloused feet,

and late at night,
she whispers her stories in my ear
seeds I scrawl to page
before they slip back into the sheets.

I repay this kindness
by humming incantations in the cadence
she taught me

in every word I write,

in every sound I utter,

across every mile I travel.

And when she outlives me,
as all revered loves do,

she will miss her cockeyed collaborator
and rhapsodize eulogies
when no one remains to listen.

She didn’t find me,
resurrect me,
breath life back into me,
we’ve always been together,

here,                           one.

“Poetry didn’t save my life” is previously published in Catching Calliope Vol 1 Winter 2014.