Middle
We’re supposed to be
taking a break.
Again.
But we meet for dinner
and I take you back
to my sublet
push you down on the couch.
We’re surrounded by photos
of people I don’t know.
Their smiles fake.
Forced.
We kiss
slowly, deeply.
You slip my dress off so quickly
I don’t realize I am naked.
Your lips on my breast, you moan.
And my heart begins to ache.
I wish my love for you
was like the seeds
of a dandelion flower.
Blown into the air.
~
Five
After you died, I told people it took two years
for me to stop crying.
But that was a lie.
I cried for five.
At Facebook posts by friends
who had lost mothers
and fluffy dogs named Mr. Snuggles.
I cried when I read the paper.
When I left my apartment.
and returned at night.
At movie trailers of superheroes flying through the air.
On the subway platform as a man across the tracks
combed his mother’s thin hair.
He was as tall as a giant.
She was small and fragile like a doll.
The only time I didn’t cry was when I called your mother.
I listened to her weep.
~
Kerri Quinn is a New York City based writer, producer and director.