Context (Meghan)

Context

I said person but meant man.

You heard boy in the space between.

I am a woman person.

I want you to see a woman person.

You are a man, fully grown.

You are a man who wants me to see a man, fully grown.

So I said person and you heard boy

because the girls before dressed up, paraded,

sighed girl, girl, girl, and boy, boy, boy,

and lover made them giggle,

husband made them dream of days but not beyond,

amoureux was foreplay because it sounded nice.

Partner was a word left over from the second wave,

its sack of spider eggs returned

to hatch on someone else’s skin.

Maybe mine.

I said person, then significant.

You said I am no trial.

No trial size, sweet teeth satisfied?

No trial for lies, our precursors’ crimes?

No trial period, conditional use,

but Darling, we’re all on probation.

(Happy transmitted better,

unruly reverberation supported

by the blood in your warm hands.)

I said person, diluted.

I meant woman and man, full strength.

These definitions fail but not completely.

Here are my arms, my eyes,

Trust, which sounds like rust, and might have been

had we stopped building shelters

and slept in the rain.

I see you are a man, fully grown.

I am a woman, undiluted.

Leaf, Leaf, Leave (Meghan)

Leaf, Leaf, Leave

One time I saw a leaf

in ombre green to red,

severed too soon from the

still-living—still staining, still clinging

in late September to summer’s

strong branches, bracing for the fall.

One time I saw a leaf

of smooth white paper

abandoned on the concrete drive

(beneath a tree, reddening for Fall),

flying off sheet by sheet

like doves from a branch’s sacrifice

in full, arresting flight.

One time I saw you leaf

through piles of sorted mail,

envelopes recording bills

already paid.  You were searching

for love letters you might have dreamed

but wanted to be real:

a leaf from autumn pressed

between pages never read.

One time I saw you leave

but knew you would return.

I’d pressed leaves from the day

we made our promises, after all.

One time I saw you leave

but couldn’t watch you go.

You stood in the space between us

like a late September leaf

while I lay on the concrete,

a rotting arm, a paper bird,

wiser from the Fall.