Tonight's Poet Corner: Besieged Ex-Lover

Besieged Ex-Lover
by Belinda Roddie

By launching the grenade, you've
exposed your right arm mid-hurl.
The tattoo of amber eyes glaring
from your lopsided elbow is
haunting me from a distance. I cannot
shield my sanity in a no man's land,
all my words shredded
by imagined barbed wire.
You are too close

for comfort, yet too far to touch.
Your chest heaves beneath your shirt.
There's a tattoo there, too, of
something far more daunting. Verse.
Scripture. Distorted sainthood
with a halo built from briar.

I kissed you once. You nearly bit
my tongue off. I wait for the patrol
to stomp me out. I wait
for the barber to shave my head
again for my sins. My scalp

is painted violet - even the blind
witness my defiance. And yet
I refuse to take it all back. And you
will have to live with that.