Cheryl Renaud

Over my empty shoulders
I want you to sear past my skin
Split my valley with your hair
as I lay on my back
...

along the riddle of our fiery nights
my silence found a tongue,
an intimate, scented handkerchief
a scarf to tint our world red
...

when summer leaves my face
and the seasons walk right out
you’ll find less of my beauty
and more will you find doubt
...

To ease away from my own brokenness
I am beyond the level of existence

a petal deveined from one flower,
...

I approach the quiet table
sense that it is surrounded by
walls of indifference
...

Always, as if to never wish to
betray the will of its being,
though it may seem at times
squeezed into a little corner, hugged
...

your idiosyncracies stick to my
side like a thorn till I'm sickly,
...

The day is resting. I opened the
door and let you in my house
On the sofa, we made blends of warmth
while the television talked all night
...

I tried to contrive a song whose
pearly dreams sheltered beneath sleep
existed as the sheen in your eye
...

The clothing of my longing shuns the rare
beauty of my hands—
which is obsolescence
...

Enclosed again. When night rises like
a dark staircase.
and the waters surround like apparitional fingers.
a gentle invasion. Mighty sepulcher;
...

Your consciousness abides in me
That which rouses in the night
A choral of yearning from within a sea
The way your eyes shine in noble heights
...

my piano is silent
it is time to put the top down

there are faces that part
...

At this time
I was making love
to my baby
...

I embrace my only day
which is night and welcome
my place in the stars. The heavens
in its certainty, like your arms:
...

it takes one particular event
to become
then to break
like hands that molded you
...

It's called a whimper-
that dryness lining the concerted
folds of your smile
almost like a disruption
...

what happened here
is a prayer unheard destination
once blue, born of whispers
a sigh between blades of grass
...

I walk inside you
like the soul night
Blessed and charred,
I sleep awake
...

Another day takes
place in the form
of a fountain drink
...