Afternoon: Occupation of the Living
by Ryley T. O’Brien
I watch your eyes like marbles in a bowl.
Skate tracks on an ice-pond: Inky kiss
of fresh paper. Your hands
Click pens,
Hold chins,
tear pages.
Your eyes, fallen plums,
Seek canvases to ripen on;
They land instead on nothing.
As the ice of your iris chills,
I fear it is lost in my vacuum.
White wind slams the shutters.
Your empty fruit bowl falls on wooden skin.
I remember how the sun warms floorboards. I, too,
Wasted my days with cheekbones pressed against them.
back to University & College Poetry Prizes