Tonight's Poet Corner: Stiff Hands and Sonnet Solstice #169

Stiff Hands
by Belinda Roddie

Somebody broke the clock next door,
so it's always ten at night,
but only when you're in that room
with a lover or a friend.

Time stops long enough for you
to spill your secrets along with wine.
It will let you cry a hundred times
in the corner without the dawn
infringing on your territory. It will

wrap you in a frigid shawl as
welcoming as a black hole, pull
you into a dimension that sprinkles
stardust on your bangs and turns
you gray while you're still young.

And when the somebody you
dragged along into that void
kisses you, it is like the forgotten
sun in a tiny space, until you remember
that it's bright aside, and you break free,
and you find solace in the incessant
ticking that was once so limiting before.

Her Hands Were Cold
by Belinda Roddie

Her hands were cold and would not warm up by
the hearth. No matter how many hot drinks
I passed to her, her body never rose
above its frigid temp'rature. I wrapped
her up in blankets and left her by the
fire, retiring to my bed with the vague
hope that she would soon recover from her
illness. When I woke up the next morning,
I found her where I left her, cold as ice,
but still alive. I offered her a drink,
and she declined. I offered her a kiss,
and suddenly a foreign red crept up
into her cheeks. She had been rightly warned,
and when I kissed her mouth, her lips were warm.