You Know He Used To

The twirl and twine of wind

across a weathered boardwalk

combs the cotton out

of her overhung brain

erasing the way he looked

at her lips, still stung by a kiss.

Storm soaked he arrived

to pierce her psyche

with his porcelain eyes

blue like a first set of china

the kind that’s supposed to last.

She perches on the edge

eyes plunged to the water below

too boiled to hold a reflection.

She smoothes her pale green

skirt into sharp pleats slanted

by a sun too bright with hands

so white they appear to brim. 

High above, a cloud twists itself
into a question mark.

-Debbie Calverley