A couple of poems about a couple of people

mike t swanberg

The leaving

It was longer then we hoped & it pulled at us too often
-each time my hands found the small of her back
I was saying “ soon I wont love you the same”

And every time she would kiss my eyelids it meant
“I am kissing these because a part of me once loved it”
But also
“I hope no one ever kisses your eyes but me”
And we both knew that it meant “ im sorry for every time
I said I loved you, & for every time I didn’t”

I wasn’t there to cry, or to ask her to stay
The leaving had begun months before
As a slow polaroid fade, the right corner of the room
left first then her hips and her right hand
I kissed her hard, hoping she would know it meant
“I was sorry for being everything I was”
If she knew she didn’t say just climbed into her car
And I stood in the street and waited for her
But she didn’t come, and the bottom left corner started to go


That dance

The moments came and went
anxious guests at the same party.
The host off in the closet
sliding his hand up time’s dress.

He was kissing her neck, my god
She leaned into it
that pleasure as heavy as stones
ankles turned on piles of shoes
the air heavy with winter coats

A child would have said
that they were dancing
& grown ups would have laughed
grown up laughs, shared knowing glances
across tables that conversation doesn’t cross

& The hostess stayed close
to the piano all night, waiting for a chance
to share her failing voice with a half attentive room
knowing that time
hadn’t been a very good friend to any of them


No ones child but mine

My father was an island
& my mother was a bank
on fridays
Everyone waiting, tapping
their legs

There was nothing left in me
after a day in her bed.
I wrote confessions on her skin,
made up failures to suffer over.
& what started as a moat
between her voice and my full attention
Grew and grew

By the second year I couldn’t even
hear an echo
Those white birds left for good
And her boats came
less, and less often

I would hear stories from travelers
Their, eyes wide with adventure
That the children were handsome,
& she had opened a bank