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
