On the Edge of Song

 Curtain

—Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove

UNCERTAIN
—Marchell Dyon, Chicago
 
You make me feel this way.
An acrobat walking a tight rope;
Barefooted, and in leotards.

My way slippery and unsure,
My toes flat against the wire,
I attempt to cross over, you egg me on.

Your face is airbrushed like a clown.
Your clothes bright and harlequin
Like flowers, balloons stem from your fist.

Your face shows no deception
Your lips permanently fixed toward mine
Are all smiles.

Still my stomach churns.
I force my body to keep its balance.
My mind traffic warns me;

It tells me to go back to steadier ground.
Somehow, my steps are locked
And extended on this air walk

When I do motion, it's forward.
I open my eyes. Then I breathe.
I never dream of falling,

I keep my arms steadied and stretched out.
I don’t look beyond your face.
I don’t look down.

_____________________

THE DAY WE MET
—Marchell Dyon

The day we met behind the maroon-colored curtain
Taught me all there is about love.
I was shy, still I wanted to know
What it would be like to sip your tongue, to exhale your
breath.

On the day I rose from my seat among my girlfriends
Like Adam to Eve, I followed you.
I smeared on lip gloss heavy across my face
Like chalk across a blackboard.

When we kissed, it was like the movie.
In our minds we rehearsed something sweet to say to each
other.
Afterwards, we stood blank, staring at our shoes,
Not remembering imagined lines.

An awkward romance we played out in third period.
Among the fake satin curtains, our lips were glued together.
Our sneaker feet curled and uncurled.
We were gone before the Gym Teacher could count heads.

____________________

THE SKETCHING
—Marchell Dyon

His body is now flabby, beer gut, but once Heaven-sent.
Like an Icarus once rained on in mid-flight.
He is foolhardy to believe he can recapture the sun, but he
tries.
He stands now before the easel, a prefect specimen of man.

His nipples hang low almost like earlobes.
He comically flexes like he is Mr. Universe.
He has a lobster tan that glistens off drawn curtains,
He shows me all skin.
 
I sketch from memory with eyes that see only in past tense.
I see and draw in the hard muscles,
The fault-line veins of his stomach that sits now like rolls
of fluid,
A memorial to a stomach that use to sit up in packs of six.

I choose to recall on this canvas only those days on the
beach
When his skin and hair were like Apollo.
A merman from the surf, jogging up to the sand to dry.
With eyes of disbelief I watched as he tanned in the sun.

With time adding decades to us both
He is still my Olympian god
And I am still the mortal that above all others he loves.
Who is more in awe with him, with each fine line I capture.

 Magus

—Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner

 
LIPSTICK
—Marchell Dyon

Red on brilliant red, Max Factor, movie star quality,
Busy downtown neon,
Camera-ready lips, ready on the prowl,
Who will I be tonight?
Belle of bar or the wallflower I usually am.

Will it be a night spent
With me holding my girlfriends' purses?
Ending with me not in someone arms,
With me counting minutes on the clock.

Some girls have all the luck,
True.
I’ve discovered it’s all in the advertisement.
The signals I send, the way I put it out there.

Will I become a devil in a blue dress?
A tall cool woman with stripper legs and an angel smile?
Which would he prefer to be with—all that metro fun?
Or a once-a-month bar-hopping schoolmarm?

Tonight I will wear a masquerade.
Who’s that girl in the bar window?
Be that blonde; be the one choosy over who buys me drinks.
Charming prince, whomever,
With my red fingertips carnivorous in his hair.

___________________

REPETITION
—Marchell Dyon

You keep me on the edge of song.
Your fingers are limericks.
You riddle my every thought.
Your love is free of form, spontaneous.

Your fingers are limericks with all-too-familiar punch
lines.
Our bodies know when to laugh;
We promised to love unrestricted,
Free of form, spontaneous.
Tomorrow in my place there will be some other girl.

Our bodies know when to laugh.
You say there is no love, just sex
Tomorrow in my place, you’ll sweet-talk the thongs off
another girl.
Your feelings are jumbled lines, they list strange things.

With you, there is never love, just mood swings.
Spend the night, leave in the morning,
Your feelings stay ambiguous; mine get in the way.
You come back; we jog in circles, nothing ever really ends.

People happen, then they part company, that’s what you said.
Our tangled rhythm is as old as written serenade.
We adore the familiar, we have a routine, and nothing ever
really ends.
We communicate through our skin.

Our bodies are listed in verse.
You riddle my every thought.
You speak to my skin, I like it.
You keep me on the edge of song.

___________________

Today's LittleNip:

If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!

—Shel Silverstein

__________________

—Medusa, with thanks to today's contributors, and welcome to the Kitchen, Marchell! Marchell Dyon is from Chicago, Illinois. Her work has appeared in many publications in print as well as online. Her most recent work can be found on Alittlepoetry.com. 

Stella
—Photo Enhancement by D.R. Wagner