#mary mackey

[poetrypository]

Desire, Mary Mackey

in my dreams I hold my lovers next to me all at once and ask them

what was it I desired?

my hands are full of their heads like bunches of cut roses blond hair, brown hair, red, black, their eyes are pools of bewilderment staring up at me from the bouquet

what was it I desired? I ask again

was it your bodies? did I hope by draping your flesh over me I could escape boredom

loneliness gray hairs shooting towards me from the future like thin arrows? did I think I could escape, by taking your breath into my mouth, did I think I could escape the responsibility of breathing?

what did I desire in you?

sex? knowledge? power? love?

did I expect the clouds to crack and blue moths to fly out of the stars? did I expect a voice to call to me saying

“Here at last is the answer.”

what I yell at them shaking my lovers what did I desire in you?

their ears fall off like petals they shed their faces in a pile at my feet their bewildered eyes pucker and close centers of fallen flowers

the last face floats down circling in the darkness at my feet what did I desire in you? I whisper the stems of their bodies dry in my hands

[morgandria]

The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3

It’s easy to love through a cold spring when the poles of the willows turn green pollen falls like a yellow curtain and the scent of Paper Whites clots the air

but to love for a lifetime takes talent

you have to mix yourself with the strange beauty of someone else wake each morning for 72,000 mornings in a row so breathed and bound and tangled that you can hardly sort out your arms and legs

you have to find forgiveness in everything even ink stains and broken cups

you have be willing to move through life together the way the long grasses move in a field when you careen blindly toward the other side

there’s never going to be anything straight or predictable about your path except the flattening and the springing back

you just go on walking for years hand in hand waist deep in the weeds bent slightly forward like two question marks and all the while it burns my dear it burns beautifully above you and goes on burning like a relentless sun

Copyright Mary Mackey, 2006 From “Breaking The Fever”

[joannemerriam]

[violettesiren]

At nine in the evening when the light was long and the air still tasted of dust hot as ashes we went into the river together open-mouthed and naked to consider the proposition that air was not worth breathing

that night our lives were shadows on the bottom vanishing in fish and reeds

think of this the next time you let water hold you how love was once a short summer night sweet and despairing

Suspension by Mary Mackey

[violettesiren]

At nine in the evening when the light was long and the air still tasted of dust hot as ashes we went into the river together open-mouthed and naked to consider the proposition that air was not worth breathing

that night our lives were shadows on the bottom vanishing in fish and reeds

think of this the next time you let water hold you how love was once a short summer night sweet and despairing

Suspension by Mary Mackey

[amyreblogs]

“we thought we were like people in a painting

forever beginning to sink

and never sinking”

--Mary Mackey

[crushedfingers]

Desire - Mary Mackey

in my dreams I hold my lovers next to me all at once and ask them what was it I desired? my hands are full of their heads like bunches of cut roses blond hair, brown hair, red, black, their eyes are pools of bewilderment staring up at me from the bouquet what was it I desired? I ask again was it your bodies? did I hope by draping your flesh over me I could escape boredom loneliness gray hairs shooting towards me from the future like thin arrows? did I think I could escape, by taking your breath into my mouth, did I think I could escape the responsibility of breathing? what did I desire in you? sex knowledge? power? love? did I expect the clouds to crack and blue moths to fly out of the stars? did I expect a voice to call to me saying “Here at last is the answer.” what I yell at them shaking my lovers what did I desire in you? their ears fall off like petals they shed their faces in a pile at my feet their bewildered eyes pucker and close centers of fallen flowers the last face floats down circling in the darkness at my feet what did I desire in you? I whisper the stems of their bodies dry in my hands

[missedstations]

"The Kama Sutra of Kindness: Position Number 3" - Mary Mackey

It's easy to love through a cold spring when the poles of the willows turn green pollen falls like a yellow curtain and the scent of Paper Whites clots the air but to love for a lifetime takes talent you have to mix yourself with the strange beauty of someone else wake each morning for 72,000 mornings in a row so breathed and bound and tangled that you can hardly sort out your arms and legs you have to find forgiveness in everything even ink stains and broken cups you have to be willing to move through life together the way the long grasses move in a field when you careen blindly toward the other side there's never going to be anything straight or predictable about your path except the flattening and the springing back you just go on walking for years hand in hand waist deep in the weeds bent slightly forward like two question marks and all the while it burns my dear it burns beautifully above you and goes on burning like a relentless sun