Jack Scott writes

As the Tide Rushed In

“I'm going to leave you,” you said. 
I heard you, I said. 
Again you said, “I’m going to leave you.” 
I heard you, I said again.

The ultimate persuasion, 
the ultimate trump.

Soft, you were. 
Your body was always soft, 
soft . . . soft ...                                                            
Your eyes. 
I tasted your lashes, 
I tasted tears with my tongue, 
salt tears  . . . soft tears . . . 
black mascara in the blackness, 
collision of unseen butterflies 
in the dark 
memory of colors past. 
(“I'm going to leave you.”) 
always somewhere in the air, 
the ear, caught somewhere between 
sound too loud 
and almost hearing.

Your neck was soft. 
Tasting it I tickled it. 
You laughed, I loved. 
We laughed, I loved. 
(“I’m leaving you.”) 
I love your everything. 
Your breasts are on that menu. 
(“I'm going to leave you.”)
You touch me as I touch you. 
I am your plug, 
you are my receptacle; 
together we are current.

I do not feel as much, 
though all my senses are in touch. 
I lick your sensibility. 
I touch your navigation. 
I influence your identity. 
Who are you: 
wife,  lover,  butcher, sausage . . . 
friend ? Suspended. Pending. 
I love your flesh, your meat, your skin, 
your out,  your in 
more than I love the rest of you. 
Your body loves me, your mind does not. 
I know from your corporeality 
reciprocity 
that your mind cannot pronounce or spell 
or look up meaning in the dark. 
Your mind wears too much clothing 
for this or any season. 
It’s not that cold; 
Hell can not freeze over.

The peacock, schizophrenia, 
lurks in the attic 
stored with all the heirlooms 
of your mind’s abandonment, 
relics that you will either play 
or part with 
with eventual finality.

Your body’s well and living, 
but your mind is not forgiving 
of what it can’t remember
well enough 
to accuse outright. 
Who are you? 
That is a game I play, 
a grim game with grim rules 
so in truth why call it play? 
Games: win-win, win-lose, lose-lose, 
we like to think we choose, 
but . . . 
I tried to see how you saw it, 
what it seemed to you to be.

I am wet sand and you have lain on me. 
You linger when the tide’s gone out, 
but you have gone away.

“I'm going to leave you”, you said. 
I said,  I heard you 
as the tide rushed in.


Red Peacock -- Spiros