PUBLISHED POEMS

I am losing coordinates on him. I have misplaced his figure on the map. the natural progression of entanglement. although I confess, it feels somewhat like a flicker of a funeral. and last night

you fell asleep holding my hand. clutching it with both a tightness and an ease. with gentle movement, I tested the grip: safe and unwavering. eyes shut

with your whole world alive inside. holding my heart through your palm, I breathe in the sentence of another’s shadow in the mirror of my wishes.

I cannot remember if I made your bed on my way out.
my mind replays both scripts. each are distinctly
believable. in one, I abandon the ritual. I do not pull the 

covers to the edge. frankly, I scorn at the tired mattress.
it appears worn from the weight of our messy minds – 

imagine how we feel. the pillows spill out. the duvet
sinks partly to the floor, slinking away from the night of 

failed love making and the morning of sorrow. in another 

script, tradition flows from my fingertips. I dance precision 

and care from my belly, leaning over the wooden frame to 

polish off the job. I made the bed through four seasons, it 

would be wrong to leave without one final touch. I smooth 

out the wrinkles. one last gesture. perhaps an attempt to 

tuck in the ghosts of us for sleep, one final time. 

I dreamt last night you told me you were sick

(I forgot you could appear there). in my weary

unconscious mind, you turn to me with grid

locked eyes to repeat your fear you are falling

ill. now I may be ill too. you say you feel a fever

running through you. check my back to see the

sweat, you say.  just a summer cold, I assure

you. I brush Worry underneath us both. yet

the fool is me, for Worry will not be brushed.

Worry drips and leaks like sweat with nothing

to blot it out. Worry has thighs and ankles and

toes to run fast. fevers tumble through us and

gain sly momentum the longer we do not see the

sweat. just a summer cold, I say again. you shake

your head low. a century ago, just a summer cold

could lay a man down on his deathbed.

I hate the act of showering

I am washing your sweat off of me

I bargain with the head in hopes

the water runs too cold today to step in and say goodbye to you

anticipation mingle 

inside my veiny thighs

I stay standing frozen under fluorescent lights

my towel left in the other room alongside my dignity

I am rooted

exposed

and caked  

in the soot of our smells mixed as one singular animalistic act I disguised as

something sacred

the sound of you streaked up and down the back of my bony knees

clinging to the left side of my serious collar bone 

a single eyelash on my limp chest 

tokens of sliced up pride

and even though some days I compare these beads of sweat to beads of poison

tell me, am I not still alive?

I am sedated

as the world lights itself on fire

early this morning, I rise to scrub myself 

cleaner than my skin has ever sat

I embark on a pilgrimage to 

wipe and rip

away

my most tantalizing phantoms

wreckage

solitude

and my arteries

I sort out   

this practice follows me twice a day

a companion to nod to my compulsions 

pools of yolk 

s           w               i               m

in the holes I am told I 

should wake up and look through

between the drops of my wet and deeper breath

my insides chant as 

I purify

I will not leave myself covered in my own brutality

for it will tip my axis 

drunkenly 

and with malice

I watch the universe take candid bites of one another 

to nourish our connected pits, 

preparing

yet there will be no singular attack

so leave me

I am quietly at war with my own heartbeat.

1:01am

I battle myself for the role of puppeteer

the referee begins to mock us

because the prize is the heaviest heart

I do not think we particularly mind if we lose

so, go

swing the bat until it splits a skull

perhaps we aim for the occipital lobe this time, what fun!

and I cry

do you cry?

let us spin an invisible, ironic bottle

I whine as I chew a hangnail for pleasure

only part way, of course

as if someone else is going to rip the final bit off

how does one ever really know how they arrived at the doorstep of being so broken?

1:38am

I empty out excuses

expose myself to me

ration out apologies as loud as a muted tv program

and whine some more

I swear if you listen closely

silence will begin to sound

like something you cannot un-hear

it will eat up your sanity

and wash it down with ice

1:53am

help could be on the way

but we love to point it in the other direction, don’t we?

as if it stupidly had the wrong address

so sorry for the inconvenience, my hemispheres are busy chatting to death

2:04am

I am finished

for today

haven’t you all heard?

self-sabotage is painfully quick.

https://inparentheses.art/2020/06/11/poetry-by-d-deutsch/