The unbecoming begins
on an autumn Thursday.
You cross your legs, milk-blue,
and I throb because your knees look
meant for my protection.
That is all; that is everything.
Your shoe taps mine and everything
in my body begins
reverberating. I think, I need protection
from Thursdays.
I wonder if my lover looks
at my green eyes and see yours, blue,
bluer
than everything
I’ve dared desire. Look
how quickly my defenses begin
to wither—the wait until Thursday
my last flaccid protection
from insanity. (Why lie? I’m protecting
nothing.) I’m buried in the blue.
I can’t recover Thursdays;
everything
has begun
(long ago started) to crumble. Look
at my lover saying look,
we’re not okay; she wants to protect
what she and I began.
How do I tell her I’ve blued
us to nothing? Everything
we had, I gave Thursdays.
This Thursday,
give me a bricked look
that says everything
is as it was. Protect
me from the blue.
(Or, rather, conquer me. Begin
staining everything I’ve protected
the same sin as your blue
eyes.) Thursday: (don’t) let us look and begin.
Alaina Symanovich holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida State University and an MA in English from Penn State University. Her work has appeared in Sonora Review, Little Patuxent Review, Fogged Clarity, and other journals. She currently lives and works in Maryland.
