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| MARGARET MYERS/Daily |
Would I be here now without such fever?
Burned clean each time, my heart knows where
and when to break into cold sweat, how to wash
clear the misguided lusts as rainwater on a slate
canyon brightens color striae. But see my wall,
the man's face eroding in the plaster? and here, near the bed,
see how this lover rots in the heartwood? In my bed
I've had others, but touch my pillow, touch the fever
there, the fire where I've slept without you. See the plain wall
opposite, anonymous and whole? That is where
you belong; content without a label to slate
your position, your only mark, a simple wash.
We are not Tabula Rasa; no wash
could rinse the stains from old beds
nor dilute the sweat, dry as slate
on our skin. As with any fresh fever,
the previous burn is forgotten, and where
you lie now, flushed and crazed alongside some wall,
is all that matters. But turn back the wall-
paper, watch her thin hands wash
the pears, see her soft arms where
you loved to wake. We can't dampen the fever
from distant brows, recalling too fondly the foreign bed,
morning light, other backs arching against a sky of slate.
I am not lonely in the bed, where the wall, so empty,
grows white with your fever. If the slate were clean,
the wash successful, I would not feel so full.
Jessica Belle Smith is a poet from Traverse City, Mich. These days she is a senior in the creative writing subconcentration.