Stilts (more characters)

[M. Smith]

A poem about a festering relationship.

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STILTS

I fill my empty words
like jars of jelly
or catch them like
leaking raindrops
from the rafters

I put masks on the sounds
of a reconstructed love
and build our wooden whispers
back up to working order
--to subtle singing structures
of marble and chrome

The foundations have been
washed away
from how I feel for you
and left behind are only
Stilts
bent against the wind and sea

When I come home again
we’ll shore them up with clay
--put down buckets
beneath the tearstained roof
--clear the aching salt
from the cracks that wedge us apart
--link arms across anchors of sand
as if embracing tree trunks
and will these ruins
back to their former grandeur

You’ll hold me up tonight
but both of us will fall
when the old wood snaps
the memory of your touch
and my words crumble
in on themselves

And I lose you
to the tides of
too far away
As they wash up against these
useless wooden legs