LAURIE KOENSGEN

The Ache

The clouds are strapped tight
across the sky like
hands of pubescent dancers

flattening their breasts as they
watch the prima ballerina
from the wings,

the dream of dance so brash
in them that they would forgo
blossoming.

                             The clouds.
The clouds are only holding
back some blue.

I am a woman to whom men say

Anticipate the rapture. I’ll
come home from the wars,
trade the favour of your veil
for the caves of your warm flesh.

Fervour stirs on the epic journey,
burns out on the hearthrug.
It’s the plight of landlocked women
in my bedrock tribe.

Heaps of laundry, sundry
small adjustments later,
little to nothing comes of it:
the cliffhanger, the re-runs.

I’m worn now. Lambent romance
cannot be recaptured.
It’s the light of an elegant earring
that slips down the bathroom drain.