The Woman Who Loved Every Man
I collect them.
Devote myself to it.
Reminders on corkboards, pinned
by pointed tacks as tokens of attention.
Sometimes in scrapbooks:
Hair gently trimmed during sleep,
A pressed flower from a poet,
The butt from a stranger whose lips I watched
encircle cigarettes all night.
Closest memories I line on a shelf.
Alphabetised.
Who came where and when.
Bracelet of pearls,
Underwear, torn,
bookend the types I have loved.
If needed I’ll take something more
from those who can’t see the attraction.
They stay with me
in dark corners of my mind.
Skeletons encased in wood.
Bones buried in the garden.
*Claire Walker fits writing in around raising her young family and has discovered discipline is the only way to make time to write! She attends a local writers’ group and has recently started to be published.
