Salt

© 2008 Sandra Jean-Pierre

paper

like that torn
too close to the fire piece that no one notices

I crinkle and curl up
turning light brown and smooth around my edges

bright embers
lava bright in the pinched darkness
dying to ethereal grayish smokes

to the sky

reaching to the sky...


at the bottom
the silt's silt

smooth
through my fingers

over my tongue
tasting the ocean's essence brine
back of my throat
choking on the raw bouquet

I swallow

looking only to the next

the other
this tomorrow I can never seem to catch up to
or with
to be beside

lost in right now
where everything seems fine
where every day
plants each foot in front of the next
where maybe, just may be things are just fine

just like I need it to be
so that I can make sense

in all that no one expected

more words few
existed

Winter Over My Shoulder

© 2008 Sandra Jean-Pierre

we were supposed to be bound like
fresh cut
sugarcane stalks

in the bundle
of our lives -
intertwined
sweet,
reaching towards our sun

better
like how I wanted to be for you

under one roof
sharing one bed
meals of chicken parmigiana and sweet plantains
culinary fusions

straight dream transfusions
of Mamma, Momma and kiddie(s) make three (or four, more)
me for you
you for me

thinking back
to that imaginary time line
I can only think forward
to how many months
we would have been in connubial bliss

yet
I am this
side of changed
this side of coming to know
that I can love the wrong person

this side of wondering how much
I did and would have done
for your love

this side
of no longer catching feelings
of calculating decisions
of existing for reasons
other than love

my life
has never looked
the same
since you said "I love you"
faintly into the phone

I wish
even now
that you could
fade away as easily