Catching the Couch

By C.L. Liedekev

The couch slipped out of the window
as quiet as a lion through Rhodes grass. 
Crushed leather, and god heavy, He was 
Atlas, born again as sweaty and squat. 
He caught it with every being he ever bore.  
The rings of his life buried into his ribs: 
a house fire, child's hand, the barren fields. 
He peels the bones out. One by one, 
petals from a flower, he counts the song
of her remembrance. Her hair green flaxen,  
a pulled-down brown dress, breasts as spears, 
that moment shadowed over every life event, 
she saw him as fresco, the upward curve of her lip, 
sword in the hearth, a brand that pours 
kerosene across the sky every morning. 
He would catch a thousand couches, 
an argonaut riding the elevator, perfect 
dining room table in hand, a siren call 
as wires push against the force of his blood, 
a battle against the colossus of columns and stone fear 
the impact of its cloven foot echoed 
for days, made all his food taste of chalk.  

That day, her key was a copper leg screw, 
six inches of lighting through his armor 
and into the sweet-honey of Elysium.  

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