A Single Day (Day 627)

A.M.

Rain.

Steady.

The sky, that

deep, sighing gray.

Remembering when

weather made no difference,

when our lives shone like late June.

Lightbulb sun, liquid energy.

Plotting my hours: Dickensian days,

distracting myself from that ticking clock,

the calendar, devoid of the plans we’d made.

Silver lining—my novel is growing like weeds.

P.M.

Dusk.

Welcome

as a bath,

a wool blanket,

in which I can hide.

My day? Quiet. And yours?

It’s the small talk I miss most.

And the laughter. Serious now,

arrested by my own reflection.

Who’s this woman? Does she never sparkle?

So, I’m sending you a smile—the one I wore 

when we first met—lest my frozen lips forget how. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Frances Benjamin Johnston

Above us (Day 626)

Above us   thunder

though the sky 

is clear and blue 

as a robin’s egg  

I bury my head  

waves wash 

over me and 

below us   

only silence

but when you open 

your eyes   you are 

surprised to find

I am no longer there

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Karen Blaha/Flickr

(CC BY-SA 2.0)

Leopard (Day 625)

Leopard peels back his mask and reveals prints deeper than skin. To prove his point, he pierces the base of your thumb with a finely sharpened claw. When a garnet cabochon of blood appears, you realize you are no longer sleeping. In keeping with the evening’s festive theme, a fresh bottle appears, as if by magic. Your companion, disinclined to waste, quickly drains his glass down to the dregs, and you notice the sommelier’s tragic mouth tighten with distaste. He is watching as a droplet of merlot wends its way down the leopard’s left fang, which extends beyond the boundaries of his glossy onyx lips. Apologetically, you smile and offer a slight shrug, as if to acknowledge the futility of trying to teach that old cat new tricks.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: IanZA/Pixabay

Unaccustomed to light (Day 624)

We were what I didn’t realize, and I had fallen back to sleep. Later in the morning, men would glow greenly beneath canopies of leaves, readying their saws for the day’s work. Heedless of the kindness being showered upon them. Is it true that love is merely a collection of small fears? Like golden eyes, wisdom peered and sap rained down through the branches. It was sap, wasn’t it? Giggling late into the night, safe in our sheltered lair, we cried and planned and feasted on olives, while pages of dusty butterfly wings fluttered on a metallic breeze. And then a rainy morning smelling of vinyl. And then the next day, when we, unaccustomed to light, were jarred awake by silence and a cacophonous riot of unfiltered sun. 

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Ulrich Scharwachter/Pexels

In my pocket (Day 623)

I’ve got you 

in my pocket   your lips 

spit-shiny   red 

and pursed   whispering 

lies and hate-laced words 

into the warm crease 

of my thigh

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: MaxPixel

Poetry Disturbs (Day 622)

poetry disturbs 

gelatinous golden 

midnight songs  sweet 

poison  concentrated  

surging liquid words

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: AgnosticPreachersKid/Wikimedia Commons 

(CC BY-SA 3.0)

Not My Entertainment (Day 621)

Your nightmare is not 

    my entertainment

your thirst is not quenched 

    by my need 

       to know

and my judgment does

   not feed your children

when you reach out 

   in supplication

   in sorrow 

   in anger 

to ask  grab  take 

what you must have 

I am not deprived 
of my shelter  my dinner  my sense

   of futility

and you never see me 
    reaching  

       to drag you 

          from that shrieking deluge 

to offer you 

my dinner  my bed  my heart

   cracks and breaks 

      like the ground beneath your feet

but that 
neither helps nor comforts

   you   need

what I have 
   here is a complex puzzle 

      to which every answer 
      is both

      right and wrong

and the distance between us 

is brief 

    as the final song 

       of summer’s last cricket

Dedicated to all victims of the earthquake and tsunami that 

struck the island of Sulawesi, in Indonesia, on Friday, Sept. 28, 2018.

(c) 2018, by Hannah Six

Image: Beach near Palu, on Sulawesi in Indonesia 

(Trollderella/Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0)