Platonic Drift

Half the story is: I cannot decay how you wish.

Partially, too slow for severance,

yet no more flame between us to burn.

We meet only as late laughter.

At some distance, steam from your cup

is the same mist rising from the Atlantic.

We let it be the grand scale of what cannot.

You who misses a morning body

while you drink with your eyes closed –

like you could miss a whole world too.

How the shore spills crudely post crisis,

keeping me down for longer –

Cold foam at my chest, feeling for an origin.

Each entry absolves the pain

with its salty mouth – avoiding the glass.

No cure, only a shift to radio silence.

Earth and body retreating from their wars,

wearing each other’s last vows.

The other half of the story

returning home, with no land to possess, 

just old blood and floodwater –

you and I again – singing with our lungs full.

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Vikki C. is a British-born, award-nominated writer and author of The Art of Glass Houses (Alien Buddha Press) and Where Sands Run Finest (Dark Winter Press). Her recent work appears in Dust Poetry Magazine, One Hand Clapping, Stone Circle Review, EcoTheo Review, ONE ART Poetry, Black Bough Poetry, Ice Floe Press, Acropolis Journal, The Broken Spine, The Belfast Review, Salò Press, and other venues.