Barely Literate Lesbian

I follow you into the dark.

You follow me into the streets where

the sky is lit up with stars.

You and I in evenings,

fireside lovers. Starlight fades with dawn.

You and I at sunrise, the tide does pull away,

the autumn air is

smokey. Your home is where I lay.

My home is where you're you,

your home is where we're us.

Our daytimes blur together, our night times falls apart.

The moon is always silver,

the sun is sometimes gold.

Our home is ours forever, though

the house grows old.

Your boots by our doorway,

my slippers by the hearth. Your home where I am

School uniform:

pinnafore, tie, jumper, beret

all plain grey.

Patent black Mary Jane's.

Crisp white socks with bows,

Home just over the lane.

Bicycle:

one bell, one basket, two tassles,

one training wheel fallen off.

All pink.

A cherished present from Santa Claus, the last

year I beleived.

Cobblestone houses, the trees green in bloom

My neighbours in their gardens, its barely half past two.

I'll be home in ten minutes.

I bought a bag of sweets, mostly sherbert saucers, my Friday weekly treat.

A man.

Faded jeans, t shirt concrete grey.

Hands in pockets, long hair greasy, striding in my way.

Off my bike and to the side.

He has something to say.

Him a boy of twenty something, me a girl of ten.

I hear it clear. I stand there dumb. I cycle fast away.

For sewing and baking, for sage leaves and thyme.

My house is our nest. No home without you.

We dance in the kitchen, we break bread into two.

I mend your dress, you come home to warm soup.

When it's all over and he knocks on my door,

thanks me for caring for you

through the war.

When he takes you away. No,

when you take him home,

My kiss will show when I've made peace

Lovers by the fire,

a hearth auburn gold.

Snow fall all nighttime

turn to frost at dawn,

can't you see?

I trace these crumpled page sheets, they're

pilling in the British evening rain, here an hour,

Gone the next.

Oh Winona, which man has claimed your heart?

What songs of his hath you inspired?

Will he lay despondent, alone, inconsolable when your butterfly heart flitters to another?

Our stems are short and tall and spindly and strong.

My darling don't you know that our flowers bloom in every shade across this clouded city?

If our mallow roots secure its very foundation,

our shared home my temple, your palms

my holy alter, your hips

my sacred wine.

my darling, we are not.

To me, you are the ocean,

and I your wing'ed dawn.

bathes in milky sea foam at sunrise.

Come noon, rolling tides shall part us.

I detest Him. Crying skyward