Blood and Water.

Gwynn, A.M.

 Blood and Water
    I.
   He traces the angles of the room--
   blood and flesh.
   She bends to wipe his boot. His tags chime
   the hour of leaving.
      Come home to me
   This house, and everything in it suspended
   within the silence--her mouth is a country.
   II.
   One land patch resembles another
   when the road is long enough--wound out past
   the ghostly plumes of industry in the ash of a high noon.
   The click of magazines keep time,
   lifted from a dry well--spit from the heave and buckle.
   Years spin themselves out attempting reasons,
   measuring flesh as real as the dust,
   shaken from the shell of an empty boot.
   III.
   Her eyes map the grain
   patterns in windows.
   Years of dread threaten
   to finally unravel
   with every knock, motor or ring.
   IV.
   He stands above her, the words catching behind slackened teeth:
   this was the sum of all my days.
   She thought she would know what to say, and what not.
   Nothing enough, just the deep sigh of "oh" he
   is helpless to explain and reaches out to stroke
   the knowing into the strands of her hair, hiding himself
   behind the safe lines of her face, as he tries to re-lace
   his boots, walk back across a thousand days,
   and return to her all that was taken.
   V.
   In the first hours, eyes and voices strain.
   She waits.
   He watches
   for the first lip of light
   at the window.
   She traces the unhealed
   scars with her eyes,
   pauses for muscle
   twitch or tremor.
   Nothing. Save the wave settling
   across his forehead in dark heat
   from the farthest edge
   of the bed, where he seeks
   to relearn the side he sleeps on.
   VI.
   The two aren't certain
   they breathe
   or are suspended
   like balloons full of dead air.
   He starts at a dog growl.
   Moves to the window,
   his adrenaline flash
   hours later--sparks still tremble
   in the curtains and the hem
   of her summer dress.
   She doesn't ask him to remove
   his boots in the house.
   She knows they are anchors
   that tether him from the slip
   of hands
   that once knew what to do,
   other than open, close, open.
   She thinks of mountains.
   It can take a lifetime to move them.
   If between then and now
   life unravels or lets go...
   Some things take a very long time to make.
   Continents, rivers, the hum
   of a peaceful heart. 

A.M. GWYNN writes short fiction and poetry. Her recent work will be featured in a forthcoming issue of Fiction Southeast, O-Dark-Thirty, and Consequence Magazine. Her work has also appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, Sleet Magazine, and several other literary venues. A.M. Gwynn is from Seattle, WA and resides in Germany.