Three Poems by Allison Grayhurst

Myth

  

It is not the same as being limited

by loneliness, these feelings of broken fidelity,

abandonment. It is not enough to germinate

in this grief, pleading for a picture

of better times, appealing to

memory, sentiment, knowing

I could be wrong.

 

Those days, married

to your insatiable outpourings, ecstasy

just to listen, to share our minds - walking

on streetcar tracks at 4 a.m. and never sleeping.

I carried you like a book, wilting always in life, but never

when mingled with your stature. Between us,

nothing was spoiled, not soft either.

I was delivered by your high forehead and

by your crazed emotions. I was celebrating.

 

If it was only

paper flowers, a painted-on sunrise or

imagined completeness, in that time, I was

devoured by my own individuality, stripped

of my conditioning, a person to reckon with, lean on -

whole. I was so much better than I am here, as I am

salvaging a heartbeat from habit, marked by a used-up destiny,

just me with these crippled hands, bare feet, no mentor

to merge with, nothing

to follow.

 

 

Sanguine

  

    One small awakening to accept

acceptance - a lethargic arm on my shoulder

weighing down. Air that is security has never been my ocean.

I have never been able to trigger kinships in a field of sunlight. No light

has more volume.

I am content in places where my imagination can reign,

where definition is arbitrary, redundant, and not very useful.

    I tried to love you, dive into your trachea, show

you the substance that enriches my cells. But we have

different vocations: I make windows. And you stand outside

with your scales of distraction, participating, socially at ease.

    You have grown tall, wedded as you are

to the world’s expectations.

What once was lean, marvelously eccentric,

has become typical, robust

as an animated ideal.

    You gave up your awkward insecurities, replaced them

with suave affection and loveless sex. You are not warm,

though you feign warmth. You know how to act -

teeth set in alignment, and your apparel - clean of cat hairs,

with the appropriate amount of ingenuity,

just enough to generate interest but not alarm.           

    Old people are getting older and dying,

they can hardly believe

it has come down to this. They lose their lovers,

have appendages aching with weakness - fingers

that cannot move on cue to stroke a cheek,

fingers that want to flesh out, plump up,

become tantalizing again.

    I have taken you with my fingers,

awakening the soft space between

your naval and groin. I have laid across,

massaged every ounce of need

into the vulnerable region separating your hipbones.

And I would go further.

But you have no natural shade,

and it is too exhausting to keep toting around your wares.

    You supplied me with inspiration. The postage is paid.

I must move closer to the edge of the road for you.

I must make room,

walk past, surpass, enter

my Rosewood red front door, without.

 

 

You Would Not Have Me

  

I would have taken the whole of you

in one hand, guiding you

through the pressured caverns of

a multi-layered release, and not let go

until your anguish was exposed and then relieved.

But you would not have me,

immune to my inferno and my skin

electrified with desire

for you to hold me, tuning out a rhythm on

my clustered nerves. You would not have me,

not slice such intensity with your tongue, not offer ease,

just a little ease, to my rising frenzy. And you,

stoically contained, flirting with a superficial smile

and with those blind to your tall form. I could have

freed you into the depths

where ugly things wake to a surprising beauty,

glowing with rapture, like a last breath

before surrender. You could have

been mine.

 

 

 

Allison Grayhurst is a full member of the League of Canadian Poets. She has over 370 poems published in more than 190 international journals and anthologies. Her book Somewhere Falling was published by Beach Holme Publishers in 1995. Since then she has published ten other books of poetry and four collections with Edge Unlimited Publishing. Prior to the publication of Somewhere Falling she had a poetry book published, Common Dream, and four chapbooks published by The Plowman. Her poetry chapbook The River is Blind was published by Ottawa publisher above/ground press December 2012. She lives in Toronto with her family. She also sculpts, working with clay; www.allisongrayhurst.com