Capricornicus
by Anne Pepper
In barlight you seem frozen
icepick sharp, could shatter a
warmblooded will with words.
But smelling you is superheated
such an attractive contradiction.
Like dawn in winter with smooth
rice pudding. Soft rain in mown
hay and dried tobacco. Always
and never, our words would meet
and divide nations, veto planets
out of their orbits, funnel our hearts
into the dead of silent space. I left
you. I burned a collarless shirt as
incense, slept on photographs
stained by sun and your hands. Wore
gloves and got a sunburn. It
will not follow you, that scent. Musk
of dog, but sweeter yet, and the
newly-fired gunpower of cologne on
the cuffs. It remains as I wish it gone.
If I turn now, in this place we came
not lately, I see myself reflected. There
are shards of ice left where your
fingers touched the fire and won.
Anne Pepper writes: "I'm a recent MA graduate in Creative Writing, most recently published in 2River Press, The Melic Review, and Eclectica. I'll be entering an Indiana University MLS program in August for a second degree in library
science. (So I can eat something and write, too. :)!"
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