Regina's Shoes | kellysongcollective

Regina’s Shoes

In a city park, on a wooden bench

I’m swimming in the dark. The moon is speaking French.

Every word I wrote gathers like a warm

perfect castle moat, and I refuse to storm

the walls she lies behind, the bed I need to make,

the faulds she’ll never find, the keep I cannot take.

I don’t want to be. I don’t want to see.

I am not amused. Those weren’t Regina’s shoes.

I could make her smile about an arrow slit.

And I would run a mile if the shoes would fit.

Am I just a fool, a fracture in her fort,

exception to her rule, a jester in her court?

Allegiances I pledge are a poison moss

on the wooden edge of the threshold I won’t cross.

I know this bridge I drew is mine.

I keep the picture in my mind.

I don’t think that she could ever understand

I could never be someone’s other man.

The armour’s never shone, but I could never trust

her autumn coat of arms, that it wouldn’t rust.

The songs that I would place on her parapet

wither like her face in my oubliette.