The First Good Emma
I’m sorry I found you Em,
for now I no longer need to think with my fists.
And that’s the funny thing,
because 90% is art, and 10% is plagiarism.
And temperature gauges all across America will rise when you enter their airport,
and pulses all over my body will fall as you exit…
But life is a cannon,
and when the wick is burnt out, it’s time to fire,
and mood is a room I rent, with a landlord that molests me endlessly…
In this out-of-the-circle existence, sunlight is bliss,
and men put out to war, will always return to children beneath it’s pain-devouring substance.
So, if I was to speak of you, where should I start?
Shall I dwell on character?
For in the togetherness stakes, you sit in the stables consuming cake.
Will I rate you on passion?
Your feeling undulates within,
like a slow-moving butterfly,
wings heavily laden by sunlight.
Can I tell you of beauty?
it is your heart, your mind, your ability to understand.
I become a machine which you program -
a dishlex who’s only desire is to clean brilliantly your emotional cup and saucer,
your hurt whiskey glass,
your tarnished cutlery set.
Follow me swimmingly into the moonlight tonight, Emma.
Touch me and know, that in four weeks, shall I see my clockwork heart collapse slightly,
the roof over my outhouse, subside to allow raindrops in,
and the shoe on my left foot seem uncomfortable: as if made for the right.
Because in you I find rightness, and all things Easterly -
like towering affection,
like ephemeral connection.
Chris Canham