Wednesday, July 13, 2011

This Messy Life

There was a poem hidden there, I think,
as we said goodbye the first day
after walking down West Street
to the combis that will take me home
for the next ten weeks,
when the palm of your right hand
lingered a noticeable second on my back.
Like street kids vying for scraps of attention,
deconstructed clichés loitered
in the periphery but I was
too distracted by delicate kisses
of fragile butterfly wings
inside my stomach
hinting at things to come.

There was a poem that night
we walked along the beach.
The moonlight licking at your curls,
your hands stuffed in jacket pockets
striking facsimile of a seven year old memory.
Anthropomorphisms
lurked in the Indian Ocean
just beneath the inky waves
crawling towards our feet
again and again.

There must have been a poem
when I nested myself into you
tangled in hotel sheets
and allowed contentment to unfold
itself upon me
when I forgot to wipe the smile
off my lips.
It was right there when you held my forearms
branded by melancholy
between each thin white scar tissue
meters, line breaks, stanzas.

There is a poem here
not just because I am flying
not just because I pulled you down and let you in
not just because I swoon in Durban's warm embrace
not just because I see you brimming with potential
but because rhyme and form are always tucked into
this messy life.