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Marlo Bester-Sproul

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The betrayal

For Neil

From the beginning, she felt herself drawn to him
and she knew she was in deep water
when he spoke, and she felt her own lungs bend.
But when she tried to name it the words left her stranded
on an island where even the everyday signs were foreign,
and all small conversation was broken.

She knew only that the cords had been cut,
the wires’ thin beating stilled and that even her hands
were now as useless as a pianist’s on a flute.
Capable of making beautiful music but
together, the only exchange worth heeding
was the inevitable meeting of their two flat faces -
like tectonic plates - against one another in the dark.
Was the securing of their two tongues tied
wordlessly around one another.

Later, when there was a greater need for understanding
they faced one another in candlelight.
She said, I feel like the fighter fish forced to face its adversary
in the mirror of a bowl, that’s not big enough for the both of them.
And it was then that she realised it had been about little more than the eyes,
holding hers across the table.
Ill matched, blue to black, but fiercely luring
making her think of a loch at the base of towering mountains,
where the water runs as deep as the peaks push skyward.

Where your fingers, only an inch submerged
are swallowed from mere sight.

 

Marlo Bester-Sproul took an MA in Creative Writing at Sussex University and now lives in California.

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