Dreaming in Blue Linens

This, like most poems, was a long time in the making. I originally wrote it as an undergrad at LSU. At the time it was entitled The Color of Longing. Well, many moons and many, many drafts later it found its final resting place in the 2005 issue of Ellipsis. Enjoy!


Dreaming in Blue Linens

I shouldn’t
because you’re much too young.
You’d come too quick
and leave too soon.

Still…
You push me up
against the bedroom wall,
one hand up my skirt,
pawing at my body
like climbing a breaking ladder—
clinging, frantic.

Buttons pop off
like bunk fireworks, as the smell
of your hair and breath fills me. We stumble, laughing,
almost fucking
but bound at the ankles
by our underwear.

Until our laughter becomes
sighing, moaning, those gentle
but forgettable declarations
of desire, love maybe, something dirty?

In the dark I stutter the name,
(and it sounds nearly like crying for help)
of a god I won’t consider in the light.

Then it’s done
and life is ordinary again.
I look lonely
past the miles of blue,
miles and miles of pale,
blue empty sheets.
I light a smoke and think
Baby, you should have been here.
You were great.