Once I Wanted to Meld with You, But I fear I’ve Grown Too Hard
Ours was a five year hiatus
from what has only ever
felt natural to me.
And so I look across the table,
over my blood red cabernet
and your fair pinot,
and my dark eyes draw
their shield to your honey iris.
Please do not penetrate.
I have just fallen back
in love with me,
with my callous, and the
notion that there is little
about me that is easy;
that my skin doesn’t burn
it only leathers,
that my hair never lightens,
it only perseveres,
that my features are purposeful,
and never delicate.
And only our image reflected
off the screen door of your
daddy’s house,
as I gently guide you by the small
of your back and lace my fingers
to entangle yours the way I
draw tight the strings on steel reinforced boots,
Monday through Friday when
I’m not quite so polished
and your living free of the cold
that plagues November;
only then do I seem redeemable.
The Sound of Giving In
At first I only hear the drone,
that invidious drone,
that grows louder,
metastasizing from some place behind my heart
buried deep within my diaphragm.
It reverberates like church bells,
on the hour off my bones,
forcing organs to cling to
clavicle walls.
I wonder if it is borne
within me,
or if I breathed it through
the end of a cigarette;
the thick silence that lingers
in this truck cab.
I’ve never claimed to be
anything other than unwilling
to break the silence.
She has never claimed to mind.
It’s funny how we’ve digressed
from the trace of a Bushmills kiss
I left on her toungue, as I brush the hair
from her face that kept the light
from her eyes,
to this, an admission of truth
to my father’s mantra,
that anything can become work if you let it.
My name is Christopher Grillo and I am a writer/poet from New Haven County, CT. Currently I am enrolled in the MFA program at Southern Connecticut State University where I hold a Graduate Assistantship. I have been published in various literary journals regional to New Haven as well as having received a grant for Excellence in Poetry from Fairfield University.
Until recently, I have been scarcely published on the national level and have made a point to locate progressive journals such as yours to send too. I write with a focus on relationships and people with a background of Americana that I hope you will enjoy.