by Cecilia André
The house of love
i) Leave the porch light on
The loved one went out for a run and didn’t come back,
this period can’t end unless their body is found
or they stride upstairs shouting.
Your time is not your own,
it is not mourning, yet, but love suspended,
there’s nothing new for anyone to say.
Some days you see yourself as if watching a film
with flashbacks and recaps
at certain points the loved one comes into view
you freeze frame these moments.
ii) Stirring soup
This long slow alchemical period,
has no recognisable name
and ends when you’re not noticing,
time stands a little behind you, just out of view
on long, long evenings when the loved one
is gone.
iii) Dirt
accumulates, the dust backs up in drifts
it will never be clean,
these are your domestic rules of engagement,
the elephant in the room sheds handfuls of skin
tears the wallpaper, mists the panes,
needs a wide berth and shovels;
you wish the loved one would walk back in and
put their shoulder to the wheel.
iv) King Canute
At slack water
the sea drawn by the moon
sweeps in behind
and the rise and fall
is beyond your control,
events move in one direction and the loved one has gone
you try spooling it in reverse;
give it up, you can’t hold it back,
you won’t win.
v) Erik Satie, for example
Always changing, always the same
the space between notes,
your held breath before the pavane,
like holding your keys
from the back of a ferry for the thrill of the danger,
there’s a reason to behave like that,
I’ll explain when I get a moment.
vi) Pound shop meditation
You think of lungs, but not your own as
you smoke then visualise (as you should)
your body and the battle it may have with
strokes and pulmonary heart disease,
there’s no name for the pause between the draw
and the release,
let your chest crackle, dance with death, it is
the way you entertain the agony of yearning
on your own terms.
Brian Comber (he/him) lives in Worcestershire in England and writes poetry together with the occasional short story. He’s had poems published by Picaroon Poetry, Prole Poetry, Feral Poetry, The Beach Hut, Gentian journal, Dear Reader, Wild Pressed books, Re-side and Selcouth Station. He is a member of the Worcester Writers’ Circle and has performed regularly at Worcester spoken word events, (through Zoom at the moment). He wishes he’d started writing sooner in life, he finds walking and running really helps when he can’t think what to write. Twitter @briancomber.
Cecilia André is a NYC painter descendant of Lebanese immigrants to Brazil. The poetics of intuitive colors guide her dynamic art production. In this series of oil paintings, stitching and weaving explore and breakup the traditional backgrounds. Currently color interplays with light in her installations at the Queens Botanical Garden Gallery. @cecilia_andre_art www.ceciliaandre.com