Tessa Rumsey.
THE SMALLEST EFFECTIVE DISTANCE
Where is the original skin this version can be checked against? Snow,
Cholera, Red Shoe, Nightingale-the image outshine
the actual, the body outshines the soul, the angel
food cake dissolves as you dip it into a cup of black coffee
before me, dark sugar & inevitably, fading. You are my ex & thus
the past must outshine the present in a way that hurts
just to look at. In another country
wasps burrow into October’s fallen butter pears
& poppies are halfway drawn toward dying. Everything
in this life has an outline that at sometime will cease
to contain it. So many different renderings of the same wink
& silence that I nearly forgot what time it was-
do you know what lesson this is? Ah, the one where she is made
to decipher desire alone, the one where she wants to be loved
but instead is outshined by her wanting. So easy
to think for a second that the original may soon pale in comparison.
No, says the actual, It was the best you’d ever had, & its one true joy
is that you’ll never have it again.
Where is the original skin this version can be checked against? Snow,
Cholera, Red Shoe, Nightingale-the image outshine
the actual, the body outshines the soul, the angel
food cake dissolves as you dip it into a cup of black coffee
before me, dark sugar & inevitably, fading. You are my ex & thus
the past must outshine the present in a way that hurts
just to look at. In another country
wasps burrow into October’s fallen butter pears
& poppies are halfway drawn toward dying. Everything
in this life has an outline that at sometime will cease
to contain it. So many different renderings of the same wink
& silence that I nearly forgot what time it was-
do you know what lesson this is? Ah, the one where she is made
to decipher desire alone, the one where she wants to be loved
but instead is outshined by her wanting. So easy
to think for a second that the original may soon pale in comparison.
No, says the actual, It was the best you’d ever had, & its one true joy
is that you’ll never have it again.