Look Me Down Gentle Before You Head West

by Katerina Ellison-Batt

There are wings where knives are kept,
curled up like cats in white teacups.
Please don't sing now of mistakes—
fall into familiar fields
where you don't have to pretend.

I could be something else for you
and I could change.
We stretch paper over thin book spines,
stretch sheets over mattresses
like spread out angels.

The morning light makes bumbling humans of us then,
where last night we were free
to shape shadows and bend
the mottled edges of what could be said
and done.

We sleep in shades of hidden meaning
and threaded shackles.
Look me down gentle before you head west
in a phonebook
or a mirror—
don't leave without seeing me in that light.

The dark room hummed like a generator
and sentimentality was blotted out the next day.
It is hard to not put you or myself in a poem,
but feelings change
and I want this one to be timeless.

There are more deserving candidates than us.
There I go, saying what I don't mean.
A little death.

I am polite enough to avert my eyes from what I want.
I do not know who taught me
that wanting was dangerous.

I'm standing on a stage in some strange English town
and you're somewhere, somewhere far away
or very close but not here
so it's all the same.

It all breaks your heart
but some things do so more elegantly,
apologetically—
and you will never be able to apologize in time.

Before she lost her memory
we played at the pool,
a molten California postcard summer.
Here is your body, god said then,
don't hate it but I know you will.

And don't pretend to be something you're not
and don't smoke
and certainly don't burden your parents with it
when you do everything wrong.

Somewhere it's always summer
and you've never left.
Somewhere I don't even know the word.

Katerina Ellison-Batt is a poet living in Chicago. Her poetry collection Small Dog, Sharp Teeth can be found on online.