Poetry Breakfast

In opposition to you leaving
by Kristina England

I found the duffle bag of clothes you stuffed
when you woke to our day on the wrong side.

It happens, but go ahead, shove off. Good luck
finding remedies in the forward motion of legs.

Look in the hallway mirror before you head out.
Witness the weight of leaving – your eyes

heavy with the lapping of water-logged buckets.
There’s bound to be a few leaks. It’s okay.

Soon the words will pool over and stream
down your cheeks in murmuring rivers

you’ll hear the splashing of language
saying, “Go back. Go back. Go back.”

Try to stop the flowing water.
Try to swim uphill through the dirge.

Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is an active member of the poetry community serving on the Board of Directors for the Worcester County Poetry Association and an assistant editor for Ballard Street Poetry Journal. She also runs a local poetry workshop. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, Haggard and Halloo, Nib Review, and other journals. For more on her poetry, visit kristinaengland.blogspot.com.

This poem is not an autobiography
by Kristina England

If it was, I would tell you how my nose slants to the left
from the time I fell into a marble table while jumping on
my grandmother’s couch. How I wasn’t old enough to feel.
I would write that I lost my tongue at the age of seven
to the first boy who caught my heart. That a heart grows
wings in order to flutter out of the cold clasp of hands
(a dove can only thrash for so long). I would warn you
that a boy does not let go of what he owns. Instead,
he springs into a thousand men, hands interlocked,
stretching into a monotonous rope around the bird.
How she thinks of light when the darkness comes.

Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is an active member of the poetry community serving on the Board of Directors for the Worcester County Poetry Association and an assistant editor for Ballard Street Poetry Journal. She also runs a local poetry workshop. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, Haggard and Halloo, Nib Review, and other journals. For more on her poetry, visit kristinaengland.blogspot.com.