Counting the Ways OR: Short, Piney Poems for Julia
By Kevin Popovich
Partners in Grime, January 2015
one A blue stain on my chest from your latest coloring. I tried to keep it dry in the shower, but it disappeared like yesterday’s dirt; a reminder of your impermanence. “We are working on that�
two You leave before the sun awakes and on days I find the strength to walk you to the door I watch your car disappear and slink back to my bed to count the ways that I have loved you.
three I find myself speaking in your tongue to convince myself that you are still beside me. The air that you have breathed into my blackened lungs has given me my voice again.
four In the blue glow of morning I wake to your snoring, bring you closer to me and thank the lingering moon for the rising and falling of your chest and the steady thump of your heart.
five Wine redder than plasma can not bring us closer but I will drink it until I can dream of you
six You appeared before me as a goddess would. You told me I would never be unhappy again and I believed youin the most sane decision I have ever made.
seven I will fill this notebook you have given me with all the ways that I have loved you and I will not regret a single word I’ve drunkenly scrawled.
eight Drunker than I have ever been and all I can picture when I close my eyes is your smile and the way your lips are more approachable than any other set I’ve ever touched.
nine A flash on a phone a passing scent a ghost around the corner counting down until the incorporeal will be justified
ten Longing for her as I do the sea. Waiting for arms to crash upon me like cresting waves and to be one with TEEMING LIFE far below beaten surface
eleven Realizing that I can count until my bones are dust and I will never finish
twelve I am only a cell but she: she is a body fully realized and always changing growing and dying returning to life Lazarus with hips. Prometheus showing me fire for the first time.
thirteen She drifted to my bed in a time of need. She knew not that I needed it just as much. We found solace in each other’s presence.
fourteen The image of you the valley between your thighs gentle rolling of your spine the subtle protrusion of your clavicle is becoming sharper each day until you are no longer a ghost
fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty one and so on. Until my fingers have been taken by arthritis. Until my lungs have rotted and until my throat rusts itself shut. I will count And I will be thankful.