Читать книгу Renaissance Normcore - Adèle Barclay - Страница 9

you packed condoms

forgot underwear

pulled your cock out

in the hotel hallway

and later wrote

to say you admire

my emotional vulnerability

Rebecca described you

as wiggly in the face

of seeing too much

uncertainty, she said

I see it too but somehow

manage to pluck

a way forward

and then there’s the way

you remember everything

I’ve ever said, how you

register every gesture

I wonder if you remember

all the things you say

when we’re fucking

Rebecca served me honey

cake for the Jewish New Year

in between my train

from Toronto to Montreal

and flight to Vancouver

my ideal is to touch

all three simultaneously

but it’s Montreal

whose fever brushes

my cheeks, whose arms

hold me while I shake

in my skull

I left Sara and her black

cat in Toronto that morning

her mother worried

about her daughter’s

indecision over which dish

to make for Rosh Hashanah

autumn knocks a dent

into her depression

that winter packs with ice

I’ve written to you like this

before, I had forgotten

some of the awful

moments like how

my anger turned you on,

the radius of your

free fall

you seem kinder now

age humbles as it dulls

we left the hotel

in the late afternoon

and I could feel a sweetness

rising in you, some sort of

flag unfurled

you ask for my favourite

Emily Dickinson poem

it’s the one with mermaids

where the sea trespasses

her belt and bodice

she feels his silver heel

at her ankle

before withdrawing

he gives her a mighty look

I hope your students

like Emily Dickinson

I’m afraid of what days

actually look like

with you

not these nights

where we dive

into morning

I will say

the sweetness

felt hard

and earned