Streetlights

Our city is a postcard

from every previous era that

built upon its narrow, disordered

character. Gas lamps at some point

gave way to ugly posts and uglier

wires, while the light remained

as soft as a whispered promise.

 

I always thought you loved me

most only under the light of

one of them; where you could

half see my face but not completely

the look in my eyes all the times

I contemplated what a life with you

would taste like.

 

I wonder now how many other beds

you imagined your way into

while sharing mine? I always

return to that streetlight

when I am with you, holding you by

its light and dancing with your

tongue and my warm body.

 

Do you remember? I have wanted you

in every way a lover wants her man,

many times, before and since-

but never more than that

single beautiful night on a street

5% illuminated and 95% deserted.

That time you maybe almost

fell in love with me.

 

You always thought, it would be

so easy for me to just forget you.

Two years in, I can say-

there is no way to erase the shape

of you from the painting of my

days and nights. Everything reminds

me of you, every glance in another

direction still impales me like

light in a crack in the cobblestone.

 

I have only ever tried to love you

as best I knew how to love.

Fiercely, but without pretext. You

say, I cannot walk with you, but

I also saw a different version of

our same story written once on old

bricks and the singing of traditional

tavern songs. The streetlights

have historically been sentinels 

to human folly. Entire wars 

were fought in the time it took you 

to abandon my heart 

to your country.

 

If you walk at night, alone,

and ever think to look for me-

I believe you will find me

right where you left me, under

that street light on a broken

avenue, in the rain. Do you see now?

My hand is still extended. I would

still dance with you, with or without

witnesses. The light should be just

bright enough right now for you

to see me crying.

Author's Note

written as an exercise for Casa los Altos as our biweekly poetry exploration. Translated here form my original in Spanish.

Artwork is my own.

Reviews

[emmajoy]

To read one of your poems, posts, is like... swimming against a tide of emotions, yet feeling them from outside in. The love described has to be indelible, engrained through every part of your body. Lord knows how your phrases manage to write with such depths... your penning has always had such magic yet reality... a mixture whether fact or fiction.. has always has full lungs, full colour.

I couldnt help but feel your pain, R., especially each-every time you mentioned the streetlights over and over..seemingly 'highlighting' their importance. Then, dear friend, that final word.. How else could anyone deny the ripping open of such...anguish.. surely the only word. 'My hand is still extended. I would still dance with you, with or without witnesses. '

This surely must be the most graphic of your many writes over the years, dear friend.

[An owl on the moon]

What a painful beauty... wandering under the dim lights... aching in the loving.. the letting go. Your words feel like brushstrokes, dark colors all amber lit by the fading fire of you. Profoundly wondrous, dear friend.