If You Only Knew...
Poetry by Mari-Carmen Marín
I have dreams where you’re sitting on the floor
in the business aisle of Barnes and Noble on Westheimer Road.
You have headphones in your ears, iPod in the front pocket of your jeans.
You’re holding a book on your lap and tapping your fingers
to the rhythm of Seal’s Killer.
I can still see your eyes opening wide
at the sight of me, like the door of the dining room
I excitedly opened as a kid on Christmas Eve,
to find Santa’s gifts under the tree.
Your eyes smile at me, lighting like two sparkler candles.
I want to gaze at them until I can reach
that bruised spot in your heart
you wrote me about in your letters
and stroke it,
helping your blood pump in and out.
We talk, laugh, talk more, laugh more,
and then, silence . . . electric silence,
forming a field of magnetic desire.
Your hand—blood-hungry veins against
your brown skin—cradles mine.
A lightning bolt travels through my body
striking in my pelvis, burning to ashes
my self-restraint.
The stone shield around my heart cracks,
revealing a bruised spot, like yours.
I come closer and brush your left cheek
with the back of my right hand.
Tears fall from your wide luminous eyes.
Our lips touch and I wake up.
I cry, with longing, with pain, with guilt.
in the business aisle of Barnes and Noble on Westheimer Road.
You have headphones in your ears, iPod in the front pocket of your jeans.
You’re holding a book on your lap and tapping your fingers
to the rhythm of Seal’s Killer.
I can still see your eyes opening wide
at the sight of me, like the door of the dining room
I excitedly opened as a kid on Christmas Eve,
to find Santa’s gifts under the tree.
Your eyes smile at me, lighting like two sparkler candles.
I want to gaze at them until I can reach
that bruised spot in your heart
you wrote me about in your letters
and stroke it,
helping your blood pump in and out.
We talk, laugh, talk more, laugh more,
and then, silence . . . electric silence,
forming a field of magnetic desire.
Your hand—blood-hungry veins against
your brown skin—cradles mine.
A lightning bolt travels through my body
striking in my pelvis, burning to ashes
my self-restraint.
The stone shield around my heart cracks,
revealing a bruised spot, like yours.
I come closer and brush your left cheek
with the back of my right hand.
Tears fall from your wide luminous eyes.
Our lips touch and I wake up.
I cry, with longing, with pain, with guilt.
About the Writer
Mari-Carmen Marín was born in Málaga, Spain, but moved to Houston, TX, in 2003, where she has found her second home. She is a professor of English at Lone Star College—Tomball, and enjoys dancing, drawing, reading, and writing poetry in her spare time. Writing poetry is her comfy chair in front of a fireplace on a stormy winter day. Her work has appeared in several literary journals, and her debut poetry book, Swimming, Not Drowning, was published by Legacy Book Press in 2021. Her author website is www.maricarmenmarinauthor.com
