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Eve Falls: Part
II
She has
learned
the open mouth
of desire,
the closed
eyes, back arching
to prove he is
gifted
in the arts of
pleasure.
She knows the
teasing curves
of her
unclothed body,
the way
moonlight traces lines
like greedy
hands.
She has watched
the women
in those videos
package their
flesh
as any enticing
morsel
on a
supermarket shelf–
silky cloth
that does not cover,
that moves on
the body,
a tantalizing
skin.
She knows the
pitch of her sigh,
the shudder of
breath,
the whisper of
words in the dark,
meaningless,
except of timbre.
She has always
been
a good student.
When We Were
Kids
When we were
kids,
I caught
shooting stars in my mouth,
found the end
of the rainbow
in a corner
lot,
spun gold
thread into stories
that skated
across my tongue
like first
snow.
When we were
kids,
you fell down
wells,
wandered
forests inhabited by crooked-nose witches,
washed out to
sea at high tide.
I never knew
how to pull you in.
My words lost
their magic just before your middle ear.
I tried to hold
you with pinkie promises,
and schoolyard
song,
and
happily-ever-afters not found in books.
But we had read
different fairy tales.
I swallowed
stars,
you choked on
the moon’s darker half.
Orion
I have loved
you
since Astronomy
in fourth grade,
since I could
pick you out
of a messy
lineup of stars.
For so long,
I thought the
Big Dipper
was an old
fashioned ladle for water.
I never mistook
you
for anything
but a man–
three bright
stars, your great belt,
your broad
shoulders,
your bronze
club raised.
I told myself a
story of you
As long as
you are in my sky,
I said, I am
home.
You followed me
through seasons
and latitude
lines,
shifting
quietly in the dark.
I bore your
son,
all light and
myth,
while you
hovered in the vast night
as any anxious
father.
I kissed his
black hair, his pink face,
his crooked
nose.
I gave him your
name–
your blessing.
Long Division
He speaks from
far away,
as if
contemplating a great distance–
the path the
stroke has taken
leaving his
body a work of division.
This is just
another version of Job’s story,
he would say–
the systematic
taking away of each thing of value
family and
livelihood and physical strength.
And now, this
symmetrical splitting
into left and
right.
Messages he
sends his body,
go undelivered.
For his
willingness to play the game,
Job was given
the consolation prize–
a new wife and
kids,
a big house, an
abundant harvest,
an appreciation
of the comedic side of tragedy–
the gift of a
very long life.
Job must have
compared
the new wife to
the old,
the last brood
to the first,
his dreams
segregating themselves
into befores
and afters.
Now, he dreams
of new forms of loss,
not symbols but
actual events–
flood and
famine and war.
He pictures two
hemispheres of gray matter
and loss
hanging like a dead weight of flesh
on only one
side.
Nicole Borg is an ex-English teacher, poet, and
fiction writer. Her work has appeared in Dust & Fire, Main
Channel Voices and Green Blade. Besides writing, she enjoys
reading, cooking,
Yoga and daydreaming of writing. She lives in Wabasha,
MN on the beautiful
Mississippi River with her husband and two year old son.
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