Our love is the night sky –
the way it looks like cotton
stretched over a bruise.

L stands for the lithium stars
you pointed to as we sat on sand in Kawai.

We used to laugh like all of Spain’s
church bells going off at once.

Two lowercase l’s standing side by side, I do.
How luminous were we next to the sun that day?

Your lips – cushions I rested my index finger on…
Shhhh…. Please, I once liked you.

L is the New York Stock Exchange
ticker symbol you looked at each day
the way a little boy looks at his mother.

L is the abbreviation for a famous botanist.
When we met you wanted to be a botanist.
Now you’re a lawyer.

We are two upside down capital L’s
reaching away from each other.

L stands for the length of a line –
perhaps the line you turned left on,
and then, like rain clouds rolling in,
came the lies.

———–

About the Author

Chrys Tobey was born and raised in Cleveland. She left Cleveland when she was nineteen and settled in amongst the planted palm trees in Southern California. After graduating from Antioch University’s M.F.A. in Creative Writing program, she loaded up the car, pointed it north and moved to Portland, leaving behind a budding career in the field of Science Fiction Music Writing. (Her fan club still holds meetings).

Chrys’ poems are published in many literary journals including Poetic Diversity, Soundings East, The Pen, Mad Poet’s Review, Salt Hill, and Margie.

The Language of L can be found in her collection Wash Away:  Marie Antoinette Visits My Mind,  from Finishing Line Press.