Vanessa Daou
The Poem
The poem
This is the poem I wrote last night
While you were sleeping in my bed.
We're never content to live in the moment
but I swore to myself that I'd make it enough
just to have you in a blink, in a breath.
As the memory shimmers and the days roll on
like clouds, like trains, like sirens.

This is the poem I wrote to keep you,
to remake you, to forsake you, to forget you
to shed you, to slough you off,
to wear you like a cross, to wound you,
to bewitch you, to hеal you, to have you
to be like voodoo, a talisman, to bе your albatross,
to be the one to redeem you, to be the one who numbs you,
to be the only one who you call lover,
the one who makes mist from your mortar,
who turns your stone into ether.

This poem is black magic, extortion
a landscape, a portrait, a screenplay,
an instant replay, props on a stage.
The days march on like soldiers,
they have their orders.
We're never content to live in the moment
but I swore to myself that I'd make it enough
just to have you in a blink, in a breath.
This is the poem I wrote last night.

This is the poem I wrote last night
While you were sleeping in my bed.
We're never content to live in the moment
but I swore to myself that I'd make it enough
This is the poem I wrote to keep you
So I could wear you like a cross
As the memory shimmers, the days roll on
like clouds, like trains, like sirens