Nostalgia: Not a Mortal Wound

4/11/08

She drives through the rain with the windows down,
The glass drops hitting her face and thighs and shoulders.
She feels like the little deer in that song,
And you are the hunter,
With arrows so neat and sharp.

i cannot move when you are around, she says,
But i feel wilder, now that i think about it.
i just want to be there when the world is over,
And if i die, i want to do it with my ear to your heart,
Remembering every little detail.

She knows that everything is in his body,
That his insides must look like how he sounds,
His hands tracing over faces in photographs,
Reading her secrets because she can't stand to keep them.

She asks him if he has seen her lately,
Her dark hair making her look like an angry beast
Lips painted with red.
She really does try hard not to think about the hunter,
About his perfect hands holding perfect weapons,
The hunter who let the silver arrow fly through her body
Splintering bones.

i cannot get rid of you, she always says,
Her voice sounding more like the broken music box,
Full of her mother's jewelry,
Missing words and notes as she speaks.
You left me with the the tip of your arrow inside my lungs,
My footsteps strange, my heartbeating the speed of death.
But i know that it was an accident,
That your fingers slipped from the feathered nock.

You are in the kissing marble statues,
The music in indie films,
The smell of the sky before it rains.
i see you in impossible places you would never really be.

When i'm really quiet i can still hear your voice,
Feel your fingers against the strings,
The pulse in your wrists.

You never thought to ask me why.