Distorted Depiction - by Cassandra Atherton
ISLAND | ISSUE 159
i.
Picasso says love is dangerous, like a house that’s falling down.
You trace the heart shape around my hairline, fingers coming to
rest under my pointed chin. ‘Widow’s peak’, I say, but you kiss
the word away, your hands cupping my buttocks as we stumble
towards the bed. Paintings line the walls and I wonder what is
hidden under the rich Venetian red that defines their perimeter. I
think about clawing at their frames as you raze me to the ground.
ii.
His poems are full of memories bordered in white and blue; of
unlined paper and cobalt ink. I think of the Spode dinnerware in
your kitchen; the way the bowls sit inside one another and jiggle
when you roll the drawer in and out. Like Marie Therese Walter,
I am soft and sleepy; I swim yellowgreen. I remember your palms
on my buttocks, curve inside curve; the cupping of flesh. At the
perimeter of memory is the long quiver that travelled the length of
my spine; it masks the wordlessness beyond the flesh. ▼
This poem appeared in Island 159 in 2020. Order a print issue here.
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