A Clean Slate
This canary diamond I wear
soaks in a tub of jewellery cleaner.
Can you wash away the angry words,
remove the bitter aftertaste?
Forgiveness sits on the tip of my tongue,
sweet as honeysuckle lacing my tastebuds,
last night's argument still fresh.
I want to be hidden in the forest
where no one can see me for the trees.
I remember our voices, like cymbals
clanging, syllables knifing the air,
each cut hitting its mark as both of us
lose marble after marble. I pluck my ring
from the liquid, view the gunk left behind
and slip the clean band on my finger.
Our love story is not over.
Her Body, My Body
The morning sun accentuates
the dog-nose smudges
on the window. A dawn chorus
of wrens and robins permeate the walls
adding melody to my devotions,
to my mourning.
I am like her in more ways
than anyone knows, trusting and easygoing
hiding from the hard stuff, and the way my hand
clings to my chest when in deep thought.
Her smile was hers, though,
always cheerful, always kind.
The day and time moves forward.
Day lilies and magnolias bloom,
white clover gives up its nectar
to honeybees and butterflies,
and clouds gather, water the earth
while she turns to ash.
Now charred in memory,
she lives on in me, her cells
mingle in my blood, glimmers of her
given at birth, and specks of me
transfused through the placenta
all those years ago.
Chris Wood manages numbers by day, spends most evenings cleaning up dog hair from the abundance of love from her fur-babies, and writes in between to balance her right brain from her left. She has a bachelor's degree in accounting and works for a REIT. Her work has appeared in several journals and publications, including Poetry Quarterly, Salvation South, and Impspired. Her work also appears in two anthologies: Adult Children: Being One, Having One, & What Goes In-Between (2021) and Nothing Divine Dies, The Poetry of Nature (2021). Learn more at Chris Wood – Writer (chriswoodwriter.com).
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