Green Balloon Blown against the Corner on the Roof Tar in the Rain by Stephanie Strickland


 
 

Don’t even go there. Take back
everything I took, your taste, your shivering
 
 
—red salt, from your lip.
Take the downcurving smile
 
 
you smiled to yourself about me,
it was like a pool I entered
 
 
you were all I could see
you were green then white
 
 
that night of steady cold rain,
a candle in its glass cup pummeled by the wind—
 
 
veering
aloft not far aloft
 
 
Take back
the way you invaded
and held me. Take my memory away
of how your strength filters through your voice, how that voice
rises. Take the song back!
 
 
Take the blood, the transfusion
of blood you are in me.
 
 
you were cold you were white
 
 
If there are words,
I never found them. Take them!
Take forgiveness.
 
 
skimming the roof
 
 
Forgiveness is not enough.
 
 
driven to the corner
driven into the corner
 
 
Nothing is enough.
 
 
you were all I could see
 
 
 
Stephanie Strickland has published 8 books of poetry and 11 digital poems, most recently the Vniverse app for iPad with Ian Hatcher and Hours of the Night, an MP4 PowerPoint poem, with M.D. Coverley. Two books are forthcoming in 2019: Ringing the Changes, a code-generated project for print based on the ancient art of bell-ringing, from Counterpath Press, and How the Universe Is Made: Poems New & Selected from Ahsahta Press. http://stephaniestrickland.com