
-freelance writer, editor
& published poet-
Alexandra S. Thompson
This is Goodbye, Then?
In the halfway house, I met you
My mind swallowing particular phrases,
Your beliefs weaving their way back
Into consciousness, mine at the fall.
Some people said that we lost our way
In the conviction of chalk-bone eyes and
With our Father, Son, and Holy Ghost hearts
Crossed, delighting in dirty water.
There was a way in which you said,
The things that jumbled across
My folding table of skin and bones and tricks,
Mouthing a smoke alarm of substance.
What I said, before I saw your body
Turn to plots of dirt and cloudless sky,
I meant it then, when I felt your touch,
Laughing underneath a halved moon
Night sprawled into day, crickets
Rubbed their wings and your eyes
Saw something dead in mine
Come back alive. I mean it now,
Cross-eyed like the lone cat,
That came to call at my doorsteps,
The night that I left,
Feeling yellow with nostalgia and fever.