Past Submission (for Adam)

Jennifer Paige©1997

Give me back the year

You have so mischievously stolen

You snuck out the open window

With my heart

Through billowed gingham draperies

I watched you run away

And wanted to scream

Your name could only be whispered

Into the dry tempest summer wind

Where it was cast about

Bruised and battered

Like the fleshy organ you lugged in your suitcase

And you ran—

My heart toppled over books and photographs

And all those sweet words spoken in moonglow

They beat upon my ventricles

And my raw throat became town with whisper

I gave myself away in so many ways

I had fallen prey to your mouth with its tender words

And venomous smile

I obeyed your abysmal eyes—submitted my will

As your hands with shaded brittleness

And raged with vengefulness

Ravaged my body

In constant compliance

Your raging desert storm blowing up in my eyes

A convenient smoke-screen that left me

Dirty and gritty-skinned

No matter how I wash, it forever clings

A thorned net of memory

Smothering the wind-bend flowers which bleed

Into one another

Rainy sidewalk chalk pictures

Under my tears

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