If You Were To Kiss My Ankle

Author: Anna Russell / Labels: , ,


I am sure, if you were to kiss my ankle,
you would taste salt.
While unarticulated thoughts squatted in my cortex,
threatening to leave if I should force them
to show themselves,
a tear happened.
Actually, it was more like two or three
tears, but I didn’t count and my poems
are mostly lies that don’t mean to be
till the words scuttle onto the page with their
nutshells and similes
so let this be accurate
for the sake of… something.
Oh, there was a boy,
of course –
rendered both handsome and god-like
by his nature and by my own
absurdity.
In that order.
This tear, it came with
a warning, which was nice of it,
I suppose.
My face collapsed against
the will I like to pretend I have,
brow, nose, mouth,
the whole bloody lot of it
went “whoomph!”
then the tear came,
went

Drip

and landed on my ankle.

The nature of the universe
makes certainty unwise.

But

If you were to kiss my ankle,
just under the slender silver chain
that sometimes surprises when seen,
slightly to the left of the single freckle,
lightly flicking your tongue
over the narrowest curve
between calf and foot…

If you were to kiss my ankle,
You would taste salt.