the return of spring - Lora Robinson

maybe one day I will stop smoking,

put down the Shiraz,

stop raising every man who ever cried beautiful to my lips-

maybe then, I will reach into this cedar chest and rattle you loose,

stop reaching for you like a favorite jacket,

and you can tell me about the others-

how I was not first choice but the last standing,

and isn’t that what really matters,

because don’t we love survivors the most-

maybe one day I will learn to swim

break the levies in your skull, spring free of this

prison built with concrete hands,

shed the heavy lifevest, gripping and

filling my lungs with flood-water thrusts

and your name-

maybe one day I will leave this all behind

stop checking for scorpions in my shoes,

and bleach out this natural stain.

maybe one day, when Love is no longer something I have to survive,

I will tell you-

you were never something I wanted to get over with:

I grew my hair so there was more of me to fill your hands:

I spun yarn balls with poems so I could sleep under your tongue:

I glued the butterfly ribcage you cracked open

and rocked my spilled organs back to sleep.

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Lora Robinson is a poet and technical writer based in Baltimore, MD. Her poetry has been previously published in the SCARAB and her first poetry collection will be released in spring/summer 2021 by akinoga press.