Damla, The Prisoner
The scars on
your face Damla
they do not look
like scars at all but
small farm fields
dry and barren
patches of dirt the last
motherly hands to
touch you forgot
to crumble, smear,
then wipe away.
The chocolate on your
teeth as you say,
“imperialism” –
will you realize tomorrow
the shards of
ice soaking in
your blood will melt
long, long before they
pierce me
or our conversation?
You move my book
your hands fumble as
a child’s upon
its first grip in
womb life
and I swear, if they
shell us the last
thing I will see
shall be, blindingly,
the love I have
had for you
across pulp, torn
from the orchard fruit of blood
and history, no
not a book – a
river sensed
yet never discovered. Cradling ideas
we wade in its coolness
up to our
thinning hips.
Johnny Magdaleno is a freelance writer and journalist based in NY. He’s currently a contributor to VICE’s The Creators Project and Interview Magazine.
