Tonight's Poet Corner: We Were Willing

We Were Willing
by Belinda Roddie

She strips away her sorrows,
layer by layer, in the shape
of bundled wool, crocheted
ideas on threads as thick as twine
but handled as delicately as a spider
taming her very first fragile web
at dusk. She exposes the skin
underneath, hot and firm.

The tears on her face do not feel
as warm as her flesh against my tongue.
They are not as salty as I expected.
The ocean is calm tonight. The brine
is easier to drink, and more refreshing.

There is a hesitancy in our movements. We
change into our harlequin shirts, the ones
we sleep in so our dreams are colorful
and comedic. We drink late night tea. It is
lukewarm. Everything is colder than
our hands, knotted together like a tired
fisherman's net, pulling his soggy entrails
back to a somber shore.

I turn on the baseball game. She finds
a corner to read a book in. Old English
poetry, fresh off the shelf and slightly
smothered by the lips of jealous dust
as thick and as clingy as sea foam.
When we started this set-up, we were
willing to fight our demons together,
and these nights, we do so in silence,
so the welcomed and mutual heat
in our aching frames does not flee
when we open our anxious mouths.