Ruth Daigon
1.
I'm good at hand to hand combat,
the knife,
the sharp edge of the voice,
a jagged smile on my lips
making every kiss count.
I can't operate a gun
and don't know how
to make bullets fly.
Just let me take you by the hand.
2.
Since I'm your everyday love,
let me assure you,
you've broken nothing that's
not been smashed before.
Sometimes your subtle knife
caused a few shudders
but by now, digging deeper,
it hardly hurts at all.
And when it's my turn
to trace your networks
until I find weak spots
and blood spatters both of us,
we are not surprised.
In the morning,
we drink our coffee and
watch the same bird
attacking its reflection
in our window
over and over.
3.
I'm beginning to forget names, faces,
the day, the date, the year.
You say I'm irresponsible.
You appoint yourself my guardian.
You wear a tweed coat,
a fedora, a shoulder holster
like a secret-service man.
You carry a rope to leash me.
You tell me when to wake and when to sleep. You grow a beard like a rabbi
and stroke it
when you recite my silly stories.
Soon, you'll write my poems and read them while I sit listening in the back
row.
But, you'll lie awake at night
staring into the dark.
My turn to sleep.
And on my last day, you'll
be the one to go, leaving me here
living and forgetting.
She sleeps to lullabies of bedrooms
kitchen cantatas
and serenades of far off cities
as moonlight resonates against the sky
and wires hum simple scales.
She listens to domestic static
of fat sizzling on skillets,
dissonance of knives and forks
as light bulbs hum through
sudden arias of soap bubbles,
suck and swell of water gurgling down drains to the rock and roll of slatted
blinds.
Winds fill night's echo chambers
with the blues. Broken chords of moonlight and stars in their contrapuntal
stutter
litter the sky. Branches beat jazz tattoos until the cawing and cackling
of morning.