Tonight's Poet Corner: First Degree Burn
First Degree Burn
by Belinda Roddie
The majestic plume of a black pot's steam
can scald a lover's skin something awful -
she nurses the tender spot where all
passion moves into a single, red-veined
spider web's eye, and every gaze fixes on
the birth of the emotional Cyclops.
She leaves swatches of aloe vera
on her arm, like samples of colorless paint
on an already angry canvas, and tries
to enjoy the comedy on TV instead
of the schadenfreude lingering where
she didn't use to feel pain. For now,
the mental anguish has ceded territory
to the physical realm of discomfort, and so
she lifts her wrist above her head, where
the air turns slightly colder, to soothe
the impending scar, and where her pitying,
yet helpless, betrothed cannot kiss it
and somehow make it worse.
by Belinda Roddie
The majestic plume of a black pot's steam
can scald a lover's skin something awful -
she nurses the tender spot where all
passion moves into a single, red-veined
spider web's eye, and every gaze fixes on
the birth of the emotional Cyclops.
She leaves swatches of aloe vera
on her arm, like samples of colorless paint
on an already angry canvas, and tries
to enjoy the comedy on TV instead
of the schadenfreude lingering where
she didn't use to feel pain. For now,
the mental anguish has ceded territory
to the physical realm of discomfort, and so
she lifts her wrist above her head, where
the air turns slightly colder, to soothe
the impending scar, and where her pitying,
yet helpless, betrothed cannot kiss it
and somehow make it worse.
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