Experiment

Fictional story in poetry.
Something with longing and love.
150+ words, 20 minutes or less.
Ready, set, go!

Untitled

Even hours after sunset,
The red dust roads of Utah’s firey
Floor long ago settled
From their departing

Even in bed,
Under the weighted warmth
Of Sedrig’s handmade quilt,
His winter-cracked fingers
Petting the frayed velvet trim

Even tomorrow,
Still unborn below the horizon
Cooking like a potato
Beneath the coals of a hobo’s fire

He will not be able
to blink her away

She has made house
behind his eyelids,
Her memory swelling like sunspots that refuse to fade
The sweet rotunda of her cheeks,
Her lilac nipples,
Her elliptical navel,
sketched atop an ivory abdomen,
Her teacup kneecaps

Porcelain, he thinks,
Chinaware
Her images displayed
behind the shelf of his lids
in relentless reflection

And like the child afraid to touch
The family heirloom dishes
He is invariably drawn to them
So that without thinking
He lifts his fingers from the frayed quilt trim
And claws at his lids
Forgetting their fragility
Believing only that if he can erase her
He will not have to remember.