Gooseflesh

An accidental movement,

Brief collision, collusion

Of forms.

The hair on your arms rises,

Gooseflesh.

I scan the diffuse darkness,

Seek the steady targets 

Of your pupils,

The measured cadence 

Of your mouth,

Draw a slow breath,

Wait.

Seconds slip by

As I search the persistent

Ambiguity of your eyes,

Focus

Until everything is 

Molecular,

Hover on the brink

For a single word,

An indicative pixel,

The flicker or furrow of a line

To sever the 

Tension.

A stasis

Aching to be shattered,

A stillness

Pressing in

Until we break

Gaze, and I look

Again at the vestigial terrain

Of your skin,

Reach out for you

With nothing but purpose,

And then,

Then your body speaks.

- kc

Speakeasy

The lights hunker down, low and flickering, casting tremulous shadows on the dark walls. Heads tilt closer to the midline. Another glass is poured, another drink is stirred, with midnight's subtle fading. As the music's tempo begins to slink and waft, a few tables now sit empty - forks abandoned at reckless angles, plates streaked with honey or dotted with olive pits, fingerprints on the wine bottle.

You are confessing a long-held regret. I attempt to take each word and wring out its meaning, rather than let my body simply blur into the mellifluous cadence of your voice. A woman begins to cry silently at a table in the periphery, while three others respond by simultaneously reaching for her free hand. The bartender leans against the counter, momentarily subdued. A man clutching a leather jacket moves gingerly forward to push a swath of molasses-toned hair from his girlfriend's face.

There is a kind of honour in this. 

I suck the gin from my martini olive and we rise to lose ourselves again in the nebula of city lights.

-kc

La Luna Primavera

La luna primavera,

una fruta grande y rosa

con pétalos de luz

que se mueven suavemente 

a la tierra.

-kc

Eulogy for a Missionary

It was a Sunday lunch. Summer streamed through the window screens, refracted off the crystal glassware, and rustled the linen tablecloth that grazed our knees.

“I don’t understand it!” she said. “There were people from church, people I had eaten with, worshipped with, shared my hymnal with, who were literally hacking up other members with their machetes! There was the revolting stink of blood and eviscerated bodies being baked by the sun... I saw a baby sliced from his mother’s arms!” she choked, though her eyes held a futile vacancy.

A fork scraped a plate, delivering its last plump glob of potato salad to a waiting mouth. A hand with flawless half-moon fingertips turned the stem of glass listlessly. Muted birdsong filtered in from outside.

“I got on the bus when they told me to. I was simply airlifted out of there,” she continued, her tone still desperate but more controlled. “Why couldn’t they be? I left them... Why couldn't we take them, get the Tutsis out of there? I left, and my friends died. They were tortured and died. And for what? …Absolutely nothing.”

Beginning to clear the dinner plates in preparation for dessert, the hostess moved efficiently about the table, her grey hair haloed by the sunlight bursting into the room.

“You need to have faith,” she insisted, glancing at the woman who had been speaking so fervently, before crumpling a paper napkin tightly in her hand and continuing to stack the dishes. “You know, what happened was all part of God’s plan.”

“Yeah,” the guest replied numbly, exhaustedly, before passing on pie à la mode and falling silent.

-kc