My eyes saw you; my heart did not. I was asleep.
At the end of the heart’s night the sun came up and you were there.
Thank you.
Heart
You smile
You smile; slow sunrise
warms across my frozen heart –
now, forever, summer.
Across the sea
I followed the cross on the map you left on my heart, across the sea to the end of my world, I followed the cross on my heart to you.
Switch
Her love was on a dimmer switch. Fading from light hard and bright and long, it disappeared with a click that broke his heart.
Present
Al’s lover gave him a heart monitor to wear in bed. It always sounded. The last time it covered the sound of her husband’s key.
When Hardy met Rosa
They said Hardy had a heart of stone. But when Rosa smiled her white light smile, colours exploded from the diamond in his chest.
The architecture of the hooks
I saw the delicate blueprints, blue, old style. I leaned over to see them better on the desk, my hand soft on your shoulder. The chalky paper and the tracing of the clever blue lines. The architecture of the hooks. The sharpness for piercing, the long long straight wire that slips through flesh, stronger than hope and stronger than regret, and then the unexpected undefeatable curve and the late, too late, barb.
And when you left you left the hooks in my heart. A constant low burning and then too often the sharpness when the music touches the line, the taste or the odour, the colour of the scarf in the distance.
Inspired by a line by Hardeep Singh Kohli @misterhsk
Japheth Jones and the bullet
It was truly a dark and stormy evening when Japheth Jones went out on his scooter. His mother was taking the damp clothes down from the line on the drying green before the rain set in for serious. Little did little Japheth or Mrs Jones think that the next time she saw him he would be in a hospital, a stray bullet in his chest. We all remember the story, but how is Japheth now? Here’s his story as told to our reporter.
“The doctors said the bullet was at my heart, not in it, but I preferred the more exciting phrase. That’s where it felt as well, as my heart beat I could feel it pulsing against the bullet, the bullet holding firm – more than nuzzling, less than pressing – against each beat. As if it wanted to kill me each beat, slowly, so slowly, continuing its slow slow flight now buried in my chest.
“I got used to it there and somehow felt safer because it was there. Maybe it was because it hadn’t killed me straight away – something so dangerous hadn’t killed me – that I felt somehow protected, like I had a real original lucky charm deep inside my chest. I often thought, when I thought about it, which wasn’t often, that if anyone was to make a voodoo doll of me and stick a spike in my heart they’d be surprised to feel my lucky bullet there protecting me.
“So it was five years I kept the bullet there and then we decided it had to go. Well, the doctors decided it had to go. Like I said, I’d got used to it, it was my lucky piece, it kept me safe and reminded me I was going to die – and that’s when you feel most alive, right?
“I used to think risotto was my lucky food, vermilion my lucky colour and Jehoshaphat my lucky cowboy name. I loved the comfort of the food, the clarity of the colour and the sheer chutzpah of being called Jehoshaphat. How could they not bring me luck?
“That’s what the reporters said, I was lucky they said, in the first days when they wanted to ask my parents all about it and then later me all about it.
“And sometimes I’ve felt like falling and sometimes I’ve felt like flying and sometimes I’ve felt like turning around and walking right back out of this situation.
“And then I fell and then I flew and then I fell again.”
And then he closed his eyes and sighed, wisely. Our reporter left, slowly, reluctantly, and may not return home.
My heart on steady fire
The room lit up when she arrived. The light grew brighter.
The room lit up when she came in. The air grew softer.
The room lit up when she walked in. All noises faded.
My life lit up when you walked in, my heart on steady fire.
simonsalento 