Poems by Rose Mary Boehm

Fusion

I call you blue.
You call me a liar.
I’m yellow.
There, entering my vision,
is a flash of green.

Your blue, my yellow
a summer feast of endless green.
Take off your shoes.

Spring, summer, even the gold
and russets of mild autumns can’t fill
those cubic miles of empty heart I nurtured
where you dance.
A bird of paradise.

I begin to trust your hands
which hold me like one would
a shivering, breathless bird. I failed
to see your brightness but I wallowed
in your warmth. My stunted wings
are stretching in search of flight. The pain
as welcome as is life.

We didn’t make it through the night,
pulled ourselves apart like this bad-humoured dwarf
who didn’t get his wish. But we, like pollinating bees,
left new beginnings in the other.

Assumptions

For some weeks now I was planning
my escape.
There was no time to lose,
and when I sliced that liver
I was thinking of you.

I walked across the unkempt lawn
sighed, and pulled up my shoulders
against the cold. The dog bounded down the stairs
and we bonded in the weak frosty light
of yet another English winter morning.

This morning the doctor tells me you need
open-heart surgery.  You tell me how
fortunate you are to have me near.