relationship

Between May and December

/ joanna / 26 Comments

Between May and December
many things change.

I’ll do the falling
if you’ll clean

up the mess,
she says with closed eyes,

glowing. All the stars
in the universe

won’t save you from
breaking. Tamed,

she walks the snows
like lonely Saturday nights,

suffers too many li(n)es
woven into two-

hour unhung
afternoon

windows. Un-
heroed: she offers

the exquisite absolution
of her scars,

pale scalpel-sighs
on wrist & thigh & page,

stale redemptions in
unlit firelight.

 I won’t burn
without you.

vulnerable

/ joanna / 1 Comment

angel1

michael the archangel, castel sant’angelo, rome

he stands impenetrable
overlooking her shadow,
doesn’t see that she
hasn’t washed her hair
in days, turns his head
from the brightness
glinting in her eyes.
his hands don’t feel
her unshaven legs or
the crushing weight
of silences, and so he
never notices when
her shadow wavers and breaks
as, hips swaying dangerously,
she stands and walks away.

(and yet late at night,
clutching handfuls of empty sheet
you awaken, unsure, ask the mirror
“was it me she was thinking about?
or the angel?”)