Spread on the seagrass,
curved as fishing knives,
the cards of my past arrive
unexpectedly, three swords
piercing the heart, the only
organ that won’t bleed to death,
while the sleepy moon turns
its encrusted eyes from molten
tears falling on the gray, blushing
cheeks of a corpse. I am no knight,
but no one said I was. I am no devil
either, although some declare it.
I am but a man holding the bottom
of a bottomless cup, gently as a boy
holds the wrist of his mom crying.
I think we were more than lovers then.
We were fools. Stuck in our own heads,
those hideous, black, hand-sized
creatures, watching the waves crash
against the sheltered bay, glistening.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.
