Isle D'Ivoire

Between the sheets, and my blue dinosaur blanket,
I find a paradise once forgotten in a dream,
an island floating in the linen ocean
where you left your scent.

You wait for me in the palm trees, the sunrise
clasped in the palms of you hands.
"You can't miss this," you say, lifting
your smallest finger so I can see.

When I come to the island, I find you
straddling the curve of the earth, one foot
on each shore, fishing for summer orange
over the horizon, while you hang the moon
from your line like bait.

Why haven't you fished these past few nights?

Your skin was gingerbread from all the days
spent gripping the sun so close to your face.
I never expected you to pull it down for me.
But there it was, the day you left,
wrapped up in Christmas paper,
caught in the dome of a snowglobe.

Sometimes, between the sheets and my blue
dinosaur blanket, I find an island where it rains,
an island where I stand on ivory beach,
waiting for you to return so soft
between the sheets.

We Are Poem

Sometimes I wait for our moments to overdose,
past all the times I said, I can’t.
I can’t.
Sometimes I’m trying to talk myself off the page,
until there’s only free fall into the air,
off the edge of college ruled blue lines
into your arms.


Sometimes I wish you’d rip me apart,
analyze my pieces to know what I am.
Sometimes I wish you’d take me by the throat
and slice me open with daisies, I can only bleed
an ocean of summer night fireflies.
Listen to their voices.
I am poet.
You are muse.


Tap into me like a maple for syrup
and I’ll sink slow out of my skin
into your hands. Have you ever held
a poet between your fingers
and wrapped her around like a wedding band?


Cut me open and you’ll find a million magnetic
words stuck to my vertebrae, arranged
in a Whitman poem that forms the ribs
across my chest.
It says “I can hear America singing.”
while hugging my lungs tight,
so every time I breathe into your face
you taste the lyric oxygen.
I am poet.
You are muse.


Tear apart my pigments,
my freckles, my scars
and you’ll find the beating thesaurus
pumping out all the synonyms for your name.
You’ll find my soul, flayed open like the pages
of a grade school journal
where I wrote my name and yours in purple-ink
scribbled hearts.


Sometimes, I wish you could dissect me,
let my organs tell you the truths
that my tongue never figured out how to say.
Examine my brain.
Maybe beneath my scalp you’ll find
all of Medusa’s snakes wrapped up
to hold me when I’m shaking while you’re pleading
“let me kiss you.”


Understand, I am poet.
You are muse.


Maybe there in the central system
that makes my body go tick,
you’ll find the moon
and all her star songs hidden
in the folds of my frontal lobe.
I stole her last night
while she spied on us,
beneath the street lamp,
when I first let you cut me open,
when I first let you take my breath.


“Muse, you have knives in those eyes.” I said,
Sever the length of my smile,
tear apart my murdered poem pieces
and keep them written on that coffee
stained napkin,
hold them close in the breast pocket
of your Abercrombie button-up.
They are yours.

Blushing

Red, just beneath the skin,
just beneath the purple bruise
circles under her eyes.
She hasn't slept in weeks,
minus tonight.

Red, across the bridge
of her nose, making hazel eyes
gleam under a flickering
street lamp, making
her skin glow gold
beside that silver Audi.
She is blocking the driver door,
whispering promises in her head,
thanking the dark that no one sees

red. Running in, flushed
and painting her ears in pink,
where she tucks soft sandstone
hair. She kept her lips parted,
as if to say something more,
but her mind was silent,
her cheekbones brushed
like a seaside sunrise in
perfect auburn-sunburn

red. In the soft yellow,
she can't distinguish
stars from moon
and home from you.

©Jordyn Rhorer 2009