Guilt in the Pastoral

By Jennifer Apa

We lay together through the evening.

In the morning, I gather my books from your bedside table,

collect the spent cigarettes and heave the carcass of the evening

on a steadily growing pile.

Between the ribs of our first meeting a field budded;

moss and flowers bloomed under your endless gaze.

You said I look like a pre-Raphaelite painting,

radiant. Ethereal. You whispered my name

and I fought the urge to ask for my name again.

The stars were gauges, shooting stars

unreliable sutures in the flesh of the sky.

We made a forest from our field but got lost somehow

I burnt it to the ground, gathered up the ashes and taught myself to paint, like you–

Even in an empty house we lie in fear of discovery

painter and muse, business associates

on a private journey, in an unmarked plane.

Jennifer Apa is an American poet living in Margate, UK with her husband and dog. She received her Bachelors in Creative Writing from Skidmore College. Her poetry touches on themes of romantic love and the mundane as the fantastic. When not writing, she runs the bagel shop in her seaside town.