The Poetry of Karla Huston
HOW I GOT LIPSTICK ON PAGES 17, 18, AND 19
OF THE BOOK I PLANNED TO GIVE YOU
I'd marked the page with a Post-it note—
from the stack I'd used to fix my lipstick,
when I chiseled the tube
to a precarious edge, the groove
narrow and sulking, the color—
not quite the shade of fire
on the book's cover, but more like
maple sugar, the flush of wine
on the liner page between the author's name
and his poems. Today I see the smear
bleeding through the page before
and the page after, so that now
three pages bear the maddening mark,
and wonder what you might think of
this waxy stigmata. Now
I remember how I wanted to reach you
with these words, pull you back to me
like loose rope, while you spoke prayers
into your hands. I thought we might
finally be saved, find calm
in the spaces between letters. But now
it seems that waiting has no reward,
and time is only a sigh of lines,
your lips broken and smoking.
Previously published in One Trick Pony and the chapbook: Flight Patterns, winner of the 2003 Main Street Rag Chapbook Contest, 2003.