POEM FOR YOUR LEAVING

In the morning I feel your ghost
wrapped around me like the sheet
off my bed. There is no leg to trap
my ankle, the empty basinet of your
space next to mine. I silently hope
that I left those bobby pins in your pockets.
Think of me when you fish them out
with your fist, let my hair strands
remind you of the time you hand-fed
me apple slices. That was the summer
of your coming back, where I tripped
over your crooked smile and realized that
I’d missed you like a plane landing. I want to
rip that memory into a hundred tiny pieces.
How my heart lets you loose like balloons
in the grassy fields of my chest. How I scrub
the breath of your laughing off my shoulder
with the lint brush. I have never seen a door
that doesn’t look like you leaving. Look
at me writing this poem. Even here I
don’t mean anything I say. Except that
I still want you. That whatever is in me
still loves you deeply. It is a light I can’t
turn off. I clap my hands and nothing happens.

By Karese Burrows

Biography:

Karese Burrows is a 22 year old graphic artist and poet from The Bahamas. She has been published more than once by Words Dance Publishing and has works in the first issue of Penstrike Journal. You can read more of her words and the words she loves from her tumblr fluerishing.tumblr.com.