Love in Abandoned Places

by Cam M. Roberts

 

These wind-torn fences
and wrought-iron gates
surround the whole of this
sloven estate —

Several disheveled lawns all-encompass this derelict mansion
where stone-masonry and monoliths have gone to desolation.

Voraciously, I look at you, and give you my rapture:
Those feelings of love as repressed passion
which have burned in me for years on end
are strained through voice, spoken in torrents —
I’ve resorted to packaging my pathos in words.

In silence
we walk three miles
amid an agoraphobic field,
then through foothills within the forest.
We follow along a sinusoidal stream,
until finally you look up and smile at me,
but you warble all over as if on the verge
of a strange and tragic weeping —
A ravenous starling starts to sing of squalor.

In our unkempt garden
we stroll
under a maudlin moon
that moves us closer:
Your head now on my shoulder.

We walk on nocturne air —
The trees take note
and soon turn
their vast canopies
into a tarpaulin overcast
of cumulonimbus clouds.

The temperature drops drastically
as night-storms advance on us.
High winds begin to pick up.

Your darkening chaos of hair is as furious
as the sea inside us both — a tempestuous mane.
An assortment of veils billowing in the bluster:
As nylon ribbons, silk-lace, and black velvet
on my nape gone pale and trembling neck.
This makeshift scarf
coils taut round my throat
and shrouds half my face.

To myself, I muse:
In this tableau
you could choke
me to death
and I wouldn’t protest.

Then the miracle happens —
You assail me on all sides.

Your breath anoints my skin, absorbs under,
splays me, body and soul, asunder —
running along my collarbone
then near my jawline onward.
And I hear your galvanic voice
in my ear as lifted wings,
your austere whispering:
Nothing else.
No other.
This.

 

© CMR, 2014