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Tia Paul-Louis
Tipton Poetry Journal – Spring 2021
Separate Affairs
Tia Paul-Louis
He stays this week. October’s in Australia so he’s obliged to sipping stale coffee, toasted wheat bread, something like a sausage while seated across from a wife who crosses not just her legs but entire self like a possessed nun.
She lies next to him tonight—so slim pale in a raven tunic while he imagines October in a tropical swimsuit.
She remembers walks by the lake where they last kissed. Lost that taste three kids ago. Her promenades are to and from a nursery room and two teen bedrooms—one profaned; the other gothic. She won’t confess
to marrying a man who believes love is a prostitute. Rather, she wears a hiss so long and loud that he doesn’t bother to ask
why.
Born in the Caribbean and raised in the U.S., Tia Paul-Louis began writing songs at age 11 then experimented with poetry during high school. She earned a BA in English/Creative Writing from the University of South Florida along with a M.F.A in Creative Writing from National University in California. Her works have appeared in literary magazines such as The Voices Project, Ethos Literary Journal, and Rabbit Catastrophe Review. Some of her favorite authors and poets include Langston Hughes, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou and Edgar Allan Poe. Apart from writing, Paul-Louis enjoys music, photography, acting and cooking, though she mostly finds herself and others through poetry.
