Unmade by Isabelle Wentworth

Unmade

They sit

Fit together as sheets

crease the unmade bed

Heads and hands clasped,

Grasping a messy love.

Crammed,

ramshackled together,

Feather pillows stack the floor

doorway dust motes mute

the day.

They stay

Faded sheets, neat skeins

Stained by pet names

and dogged breaths

Their heft left

the mattress bruised

Unused notes on the table

bedside

Her side.

Old verse of poetry,

a coterie of Hallmark themes,

Rhymes scheme behind his back

Hardbacked plots against him

Synonyms kitsch as

the kitchen curtains.

Certain

he has nothing to tell you

You do not know

Knowing he is not new

and you

Are too glut-full of guests and nights,

Breaths, tests, drunk fights,

Now as polite as the quiet

that goes

On tiptoes

to turn off the lights.

A grip

Fingertip stitched

Itching word-worn scabs

Small jabs. She is not

what, he dreamed.

It seems hard now to see

In he, what she saw.

Raw husk hands cupped,

Shucked of colour, each

Bleached cheek

against cheek they lean,

beams of hardwood and soft bone.

Only a trestle

You have nestled under long

Nothing’s wrong, the blame

Aimed elsewhere, not here,

Nowhere near the fault line

signed, by the feather quill

of the weathered pillows.

He goes,

Making beds, plans, mistakes

Makes up, makes love, makes do,

Who, is this now

How are they here on the bed,

Heads heavy and small,

Fall hard into the dusty air,

Now hardly there

At all

Catch our Creator Interview with Isabelle on Patreon

Executive Producers

Sue White

Daniel Henson

Karolina Ristevski