Wound

If I have loved, it is mostly
because that is what I have
called it.

The night I left, you pressed three
scars to the inside of my wrist and said
It will be different with you gone.

Later I marked time by their fading.

But it was lazy, making you beautiful
that way. I was reading words
backwards—lover, almost
revolve, almost
evolve,

and I couldn't believe in things.

The magnolia
makes me cringe: the perfect cup
of its opening. Its center
the deepest color. I love—
I love it—

but the mind,
Mobius-stripped,
unhinged, and unhinged,
is substituting.

Copyright © 2009 Corinne Wohlford Taff All rights reserved
from Southern Indiana Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission