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The Ocean and the Jungle

/ Katrina Kaye / 4 Comments

Katrina Kaye

This is not the first time
we radiate across the same room.
Not the first time,
I glance up only to notice your eye
chasing mine,
the same twist on both our lips
as though we share the joke.

The space of a whisper
separates our bodies,
yet I never dared
to reach for your dock,
to set my flag upon your beach.

I thought perhaps your
breath blew me back.
Now I realize,
I am sea,
you, land.
But you are no coastline.

My fingers will never lap
gently upon your shore.
You are jungle,
Amazon, Congo, Daintree.
Mile upon mile
of thick brush and green vines,
overgrown,
seeping into walls,
encompassing territory,
claiming continents as your own,
thousands of miles from my reach.
You are the green eyed leopard
stalking the shadows;
the camouflage anaconda
coiled on the limb.
You creep,
believing to be veiled in obscurity.

I am Ocean.
Spreading identity around earth,
oblivious to entrapment of soil and rock.
I am Charydbis
twisting mass to watery grave,
dark waves, white capped,
unblinking eyes,
over three rows of teeth.
I am Tsunami,
uninhibited in my aggression,
not afraid to throw myself at your coast.
Refusing to accept you are beyond reach.

On the new moon,
my tide rises into atmosphere
and parts of myself,
in the guise of drizzles and drops,
slip inside you.
Sideways glances and lingering breaths,
storm your deepest ravines,
providing small
suggestions of my body
dripping over your outstretched palms.

You feast on me,
ravishing, consuming,
taking what you need to strive,
then you drain me out
and send me running home.
In lingering humidity,
you wait
for me to fall on you again.

I used to wonder why
I could only surround your mass
and never truly entwine you.
Now I know,
we have already bathed in each other
for a life time.

“The Ocean and the Jungle” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories like that Anymore (2011) and Kelp Journal (2024).

A Warning

/ Katrina Kaye / 1 Comment

Katrina Kaye

when you get older,

the words go.

they slip,

scatter,

strip from pen and page

stick in mouth,

in throat,

in mind.

they float,

flimsy as silk ribbons,

and frustrate the mind.

when you get older,

much rots.

the knees

crackle and pop,

the back

sways and scoops,

wrists stiffen.

callous thickens,

heels crack

in the cold.

if there

is not a pen

for your arthritic

hands to curl around,

you may never

hold one again.

if you don’t repeat

the words,

you forget how to

pronounce them.

forget what they mean.

cling to the words,

before they slip,

like silk ribbons,

from your grasp.

“A Warning” is previously published in They Don’t Make Memories like That Anymore …(2011).

Cinder Silhouette

/ Katrina Kaye / Leave a comment

Katrina Kaye

I was the weak one.
Prone to suggestion.
Too eager to please to ever say no.
You took the hit, then passed it to me,
mouth to mouth,
feeding me like a baby bird,
just one of our many firsts.
We were sisters then.

When the heat rippled the air,
when the smoke first slithered up walls
and clung to ceilings,
I held your hand,
sang along to your tune,
in this together.

But somewhere along the way,
your inhalation outpaced my own.
The flame we waved our hands over
didn’t burn me,
the only ash on my clothes
from your body,
the only lingering smell of smoke,
the one you dragged in from the night.
Someone threw kerosene on your flame
and you burst,
as I dwindled.

I couldn’t stifle the blaze before it spread.
My hand on your arm
couldn’t confine combustion.
It wasn’t my pride that was hurt
the day you left me on the side of the road,
so crazed by the heat you mistook concern
for accusation.
I just didn’t understand how my touch,
ice on fevered flesh,
made you flinch and flee.

Yet somehow I delude myself to think,
I can pull unconscious bodies from burning buildings.
This misconceived strength
to throw those who can’t stand for themselves
over my shoulder and carry them
free from smoke, from fire.

So I wait, knowing,
as clear as spark to skin,
at some point,
you’ll stop basking in flame.
At some point,
your lungs will fill with smoke
and your limbs will turn limp.
At some point,
I can drag your unresisting body free.

I can save you.

Will I recognize your silhouette
aglow with smoldering cinders?
Will I know your freckled
skin strapped upon bare back
or will you be scorched bone,
empty sockets, hollow?
When I touch you,
will your skin fleck
and fly under my hand?

I can tend burns. take in the broken.
Reshape you into the doll you used to be.
But I cannot extinguish your pain,
I can only bandage blistered skin.

And when you break free from my arms,
charge back through fiery doors,
so eager to be warm again,
I won’t be able to mold you back together.
You will disintegrate under my touch.

You are so far from my grasp
I can’t stop your body from flaking away.
Crisp ash strewn by the breeze.

But if it happens
your body goes limp,
your breath shallows
and you need salvation,
fresh air,
I will give you all that is in my lungs,
mouth to mouth,
to make you whole again.

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