Lemon Zest

You were warm and golden in those years before the aught,
when all we knew of each other fit inside our lunchboxes.
You were blurry
but I may have seen you clearly once or twice when I tore myself away from paper dolls and willow branches for wings.

After my hair had been stripped of it’s gold,
I caught you in your cell with ether at your lips.
For once and for then we found each other quite stunning-
with your scars glowing pearly white.
We knew a thing called misery you and I,
You are my sister in the matter of veins.
There was never suspicion only bright lemon zest,
and despite the acidic residue on our tongues we never minded the flavor.

But I won’t forget the taste you get from licking metal off of bathroom tile.
It muddled my head when I should have been more concerned
with your stitches and staples.
Up down up down up down.
That’s the beat the needle made as I put you back together.
It mingled with the ba- boom of your heart
to make a kind of marching drum,
a death march.

I’d like to think I sewed on a few pretty buttons that night,
keeping guard over you.
Watching your magnetic fingers.

A little before this time last year I was rubber.
You craved architecture of a more gothic nature,
a building with many nooks for you to hide away the old newspaper clippings and record players.
None of my records were the melody you wanted but maybe this last verse will be sufficiently communicative.
You are poison, you are wine, you are my most beautiful adieu.
My scars are freshly healed in your honor and the glow-
brighter than ever,
a shrine to your great work on my heart.

Sister, if some day you return to the corporeal,
I’ll be sleeping on the cracked green tennis court.
Wrapped in the old pink afghan I’ll dream of songs about getting higher.
Come find me.
Pass me your pipe.
I’d love to take a swig of the air you’ve been breathing for the past several centuries.