Sylwia Chrostowska

BALLAD OF DEAD LOVERS

We could be ashes scattered upward by an unknown hand

Mine the grayer yours the finer dust

Parted at cremation by stoker and law

Come together again

Commingling in midair

None living to separate us

We could be a heap of bones lying in an unseen place

Where we’d gone to rest and pass all time

Your tailbone since slid between my pelvic bones

Our skeletons longing

For one another’s flesh

Though none remains for life’s pleasures

Or we could don the waxen skin of lovers

Drowned in embrace of livid arms and thighs

Entwined at the neck the wrists and the ankles

Drifting towards some distant shore

On wave bellies

Water blowing in our sails

Or we could wear the leathered skin of lovers

Noosed side by side swung by blustering wind

The sun raining down on the rain pelting us

Lightning splitting us asunder

And when cut loose

Tucked into the earth’s cold fold