the one time
The one time you got me to cut your hair,
You were surprised that I insisted on trimming it all short with scissors first,
So that the clippers didn't choke on it.
Your dark curls with their wisps of interwoven silver slipped silkily between my fingers as I tugged them away from your scalp,
Then hissed against the snick of the blades before tumbling like fallen leaves around my feet.
Your soft, boyish charm fell away under the work of my careful hands
As you sat in front of me, my legs entwined with yours.
I stepped around your knees as I sheared the youthfulness from your scalp.
You lean back and rest your head against the comfort of my body once I am finished,
Dusting my already covered clothing in still more stubble.
I chuckle and brush the stray hair from your brow.
The intimacy of these small moments are the lifeblood of love;
They endure long beyond those first flushes of infatuation
Or the elaborate romantic gestures.
A memory in the years to come of a shared moment,
Where 'nothing special' becomes very special indeed.
© mjc 31 May 2022
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prisoner
I listen to the grawing of the seagulls that flap around the carpark,
Fighting over scraps from the public trashcans
That overflow onto the well maintained lawns of this small local park.
Their cries are oddly soothing in their raucousness.
Somewhere, out in the cold autumn surf that is lit golden just like a million other sunsets,
He bursts from the waves and brushes the saltwater from his curls.
Strong hands strip the drops from arms and legs made pale by too many secluded days,
And he revels in the feeling of sun and sand and chilly water reminding him that he is alive.
In mere moments, he'll smooth himself dry with the towel I gave him last Christmas,
Then begin the trek back across the sand to the carpark where I wait:
Immobile, bitter,
Simmering with envy in my broken prison.
© mjc 24 april 2022
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iris
I could swim in your eyes.
The cool, calming slate-blue overlays my frantic limbs and tranquilises them
To a lazy, hazy state of lassitude.
They pull me closer to the emerald green that pierces through to my lungs,
Drawing the breath from my chest like a central line deep into my core;
The mossy, deep lushness that whispers, “Come closer.”
You cling, with the reptile hue that scampers over my skin and gives me goosebumps,
All long summers and baking heat
That toasts a desert landscape to a crispy finish.
And that green, in turn, becomes the amber fire that consumes me,
Envelops me to a stasis I cannot fight,
And holds me trapped for ten thousand years…
A moment in your gaze, frozen in time.
For K.
© mjc 10 May 2021
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adore
How, exactly, does one write a love poem?
When the agility of my tongue does no justice to
the myriad sensations that grip my throat
at the very sight, smell, taste of you?
The sureness of your fingers, equally facile in delivering
a light, feathery stroke to make me shiver,
or a ringing slap to make me gasp
And catch my bottom lip between my teeth;
These hands are a volume unto themselves...
How could I diminish them to fit upon a page?
And the words that would lend accuracy to the scope of your mind,
the compassion in your soul,
or the gentleness of your spirit
Are no more mine than those required
to describe the surface of a distant star,
whose landscape I could never hope to traverse within my lifetime?
I could wax poetic for a full circumvolution of the moon
on the way that candlelight glints gold flecks in your eyes,
And yet be no closer to the truth of it than when I began.
My words, unfit for purpose, continue to stumble and blunder.
Like baby elephants stuffed helter-skelter into tutus
and shoved onto the stage,
Accompanied by a symphony of the tone deaf,
Conducted by a madman,
As the composer whirls dervishly in his grave.
So instead
I will simply say
That I adore you.
For K.
© mjc 08 May 2021
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delicate
She's delicate.
She draws the hands she doesn't like across the skin that makes her nervous to expose.
And her eyes are wary
and weary for her age.
Their pale blue hides behind short lashes and glass lenses as she apologises yet again for something she never did,
And tries to make her curvaceous frame seem frumpy and unappealing
As a form of armour.
As if she could be.
She sits mouselike in her unsafe corner with her fingers clasped tightly together
To stop them pulling anxiously at the hair she shaved off.
Her breathing shallow,
Eyelids lowered,
Hackles flattened in the presence of danger lest she attract its attention.
Oh-so-carefully pretending not to exist until the clicking of the lock, the crunching of gravel, the distant fade of the engine finally edges into silence and she stirs.
Stretches,
Bathes and eats,
Does what she can to soothe her final fraying nerve,
Before opening her journal and calling to her other, younger demons,
"It's safe to come out now,"
And like a swarm of angry bees they flood around her.
With pen and ink and tools hard won she catches them and pins them to the page once more,
Keeping them secret and keeping them safe,
Guarding them stoically from discovery until once more she is alone and can let them stretch their wings.
Yes, she is delicate.
But not delicate, like a butterfly.
Delicate, like a bomb.
For Nicole
© mjc 19 February 2021
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