Tim Lockridge

Yesterday's Visibility

I don't know what I was thinking
giving you the poem where
man and woman tumbled into roses
and rose scratched and scarlet
at sunrise, but you were happy
that their scars were only stars
in a sky of skin and gone long
before they reached our eyes.
Later, in the novel of second chance
you felt the ending was lacking—
a down-note after so much
exposition. I never made it past
chapter three, thought little
of the rising action. You followed
the saga of so much potential,
loved the Lifetime movie, sat
on the couch and tended with tissue
a tide cresting the levee. Elsewhere
I was damned. Soon we said
that words were only jamming
the spaces where a flicker of touch
should speak volumes, so we stood
silent, let a bend of the wrist
finish the story. Sunlight lit the heavy
corners of your eyes, and I wanted
to tell you that, to me, this was like
the opening click of a waltz,
but I instead touched your cheek
and thought of daisies pushing
upward through the snow.