April is National Poetry Month, and I also haven’t written a poem in a bit. A few weeks ago, I was listening to my Spotify Top 2020 songs playlist while showering — yes, I love going back to a three-year-old curated list, and yes, I have to listen to something while showering, cleaning, or doing anything apparently — and Phosphorescent’s song, “Cocaine Lights,” came on; it’s one of my favorites of theirs. The song has a few lines that go:
In the morning in the kitchen
I can hear my own blood clicking
So I stand there and I listen
Til the glowing begins
I love that image of standing there hearing your “blood clicking,” and it inspired me to want to write my own poem based on that image. Lately, I’ve stuck to about five lines when writing blog poems, but I felt like six today. Alas.
Bereft Remains
Since you left, my skin’s taut, a body bag
with eyeholes to see what I’ve become.
I smell my own blood, a rusty rotting,
leaking down to cold toes away from
a rib cage guarding a withered mass,
where the beat goes on, a forlorn moan.
Milam's Musings 