A Recidivist to His Former Captor

You live in a region overgrown
with my imagination, wild
with forests that conceal the odd
wood shack or penitentiary,
perfumed and shady as your neck
last time you craned to reach my throat,
your greeting kiss an empty threat.

I picture your tree-choked hamlet snug
beside the state corrections house:
a holding pen for social workers,
guards, and cooks; a captive bride
to an incarcerated spouse.
I'd go there even now, propelled
by longing's catapult across
the continent until I burst
the window pane above your bed
or, falling short, clawed underground
to tunnel through the floor, emerging
mud-blind like a mole of love.

We'd learn to live as rodent and wife,
I tied to the ashen hearth, you wed
to every wayward breeze. Each time
you left me I'd get by on scent:
the sultry ghosts in your armoire,
a collar's smoldering cologne
are all I'd need to fabricate
a home in this one-prison town,
this speck on the sentimental map,
where lifers plot to clear the wall
and parolees scheme to break back in.

copyright 2007 Joshua Coben
bio
Barnwood magazine
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