Sparrow

Thank You

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

Thank you

for the dance in the lightning storm;
the blowing wind that chilled summer skin
and placed my hair in your eyes.

Thank you

for meeting my gaze with kindness,
laughing at my redundant jokes, and
singing along with me to the radio.

Thank you

for learning the words to my favorite song.

Thank you

for the drink on the porch
after everyone else was gone,
for the last cigarette in your pack
and the honest conversation
long after the hour of reason
when our lips say things
our minds have long hidden.

Thank you

for the reminiscence,
for just a little while, for just one night,
of precious moments long lost
to the whirl of the wind,
while the sky’s electricity screams.

Thank you

for remembering me.

Thank you

for making me
feel as though I am still loved.

But mostly,
thank you

for releasing your grip,
for letting time and space work their magic to heal
the wounds you dug into me. Thank you
for letting me go.

“Thank You” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).

Daughter

/ Katrina Kaye / Leave a comment

Katrina Kaye

She swims inside fingerprints,
an idea so distinctly you.

A mirage reflected between hot streets
and flattering moonlight.

She is the dancer in my wooden box,
guardian of secrets
whispering her own;
her spin,
seemingly innocent.

I would be lying if I didn’t say
you haunt me from her eyes.
A memory of water in my desert.
Just an illusion of your fingers
tracing the life line in right palm.

She blends ribbons of perfume through the air
and insists she invented this for our pleasure,
but we both know better.

“Daughter” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).

Your Ghost

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

When I wake
your ghost is sitting
on the bedroom window sill.
The one the dog chewed through
that we never got around to fixing.

She plucks teeth marks with pale fingers,
glancing through the corners of eyes
pretending not to follow my movements.

She watches me rise,
and I resist the urge to tell her to look away
as I slip into robe and socks.

The last time I asked her to make me some coffee,
her face blackened to sorrow before she faded away.

I do not ask her for anything anymore.

Your ghost does not frighten me.
I am not the least bit startled when I see her
passing me in the hall,
drinking from the carton,
laying on the couch in the dim of morning.

I catch her staring a little too long,
stainless gray iris reflecting my face.
Unconditional patience woven
into the tangle of veins in the length of her reach,
wanting nothing more than the
contentment of touch.

She does not glare at the Spanish moss
webbed from regrets that hang
along my limbs.

She does not acknowledge
the crust of contrition
I have manifested inside
the lines of my face.
She sees me precious, unsullied,
as she promised she always would.

As an act of atonement,
an apology for my life after your death,
an attempt to weave back into you,
I’ve wrapped your ghost
around my body like loose ribbons,

desperate
to recreate your arms snaked around me,
to feel your exhale on the crook of my neck,
to taste the pulp of your skin with the plum of lip,

wanting nothing more
than the contentment
of touch.

“Your Ghost” is previously published in The Fall of a Sparrow (2014).