Julia

17

Deluge

We lost our purity rings when September came,
and yours, the one with the sapphire,
disappeared down the drain during the deluge.
It was still September.

You know, I used to collect dead butterflies
and beetle wings, but they got lost in the deluge too.
One time I walked to the riverbed and saw two dragonfly wings
and I dreamed their filmy skeletons were our bodies.

Your face is a Botticelli
and I want to put your secrets in a glass jar,
watch them fade like fireflies.

Someday we should collect our eyelashes
when they fall from our eyelids
and watch them drift away like an illicit love affair
when we blow them from the cradles of our fingertips,
not kissing, not watching dandelions sway
in the midnight breeze,
not breathing.