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Recovery

/ Katrina Kaye / 2 Comments

Katrina Kaye

This is a moment in
the throes of recovery.

In an attempt to mend,

to collect crushed shells
left to rot on the beach
and form them back together,

to recreate something whole,

I creep on hands and knees across
tousled bed sheets
to where you sit reading a book

and lie my head on your body,
purring into the flesh of your thigh
before sickness reclaims me.

Before I regress,

revert,

relapse,

take it

all

back

in.

In only minutes,
the tide will drag me into
the ocean of broken back.

The heave of stomach
will turn me from your scent.

The blistered,

drained,

bandaged,

will bubble under your supple touch.

But for this moment,

I rest my head upon the circuitry of your body,
listen to your voice read of rabbits and waterships,
your thumb strokes the bone of my cheek,

and count each lick of my body’s fall
and rise.

“Recovery” is previously published in Catching Calliope Vol 2, 2014 and my verse…(2014)..

I dreamt you

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I dreamt you were still alive.

Your death,                         a fabrication,
gossip created by popular media,                   the paparazzi,

to fool the public,
to fool me.

My eyes adjusted to you
like the setting sun.

You were different,
changed,          but I knew you.

A full beard of bristling blonde hair
clung to your cheeks ,
red and chapped from winter’s icy kiss.

Your shoulders,
too broad for emaciated frame
hung clothing loose

as though there was nothing more
than a whisper beneath them.

And your hands,
rough,                          blistered,
like you pulled yourself
one grip over the other
to the surface of the earth.

But your alternate appearance
did not fool me,

I knew you.

Without hesitation I ran,
falling into you,
I folded;           held you.

I felt the sharp thick hairs
of your beard on my forehead,
felt your arms holding me
like a weak memory.

And you knew me
like I knew you,

in that space in our minds
where we are free to embrace
all that we once had.

Where time,
death,              change,
those things can’t hurt us anymore.

I held you there.

“I dreamt you” is previously published in Catching Calliope Vol 3, 2014.

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).