NaPoWriMo – day 13

Gone

of all the mistakes
to land myself
back in

if I could focus
on one
moment

it would be that one

his eyebrow lifted,
his lip
almost curled

and the words
he could have
spat at me

laid instead
in perfect
syllables

precious
as any jewel
I ever wore

I have played
it again, that
moment

again and again
his hand
on the door

not yet gone

those eyes
that could have
been smiling

are harder than flint

and in their
cold
cold light

I see the cities
that would
have burned

the empires
fallen,
and know

I would risk them all

the man, the sister,
the plantation, the manner,
the daughter

the same old war
fought with muskets
and kisses

with words
with the fluttering
weary wind.

 

 
This was loosely inspired by Read Write Poem’s prompt #11:

Old movies. Name three. Pick one, research it, remember it, use it as an extended metaphor in a poem.

I definitely plan to return to this one. I have this weird idea fluttering around in the back of my head for transplanting Gone with the Wind to the cane fields of Queensland. Ray Lawler’s magnificent play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll actually has a lot of echoes with Gone with the Wind, although Olive is much nicer than Scarlett, and Roo much less assured than Rhett.